Determining dimensions of Iranians' individual social health: a qualitative approach

Social health is important to be assessed as a dimension of health. The aim of study was to determine domains and sub-domains of individual social health of Iranians. This study was carried out with a qualitative approach, using thematic content analysis. Twenty five experts participated in interviews, using individual semi-structured interviews between November 2010 and June 2011. This data supported with strong search. Two main areas extracted from these interviews including social support and social function. The social support domain contained seventeen sub-areas, including social support at the time of disease; disability; daily life issues, etc. And the social function as second domain contained twelve sub-areas, including: financial aids to others; emotionally aids to others; participating in social groups, etc. We developed a conceptual framework for social health in the individual level in Iranian population. It makes preparations for providing a valid and reliable measurement scale for social health in next studies and evidence-based policy-making

[Components of clinical preventive services system in a specialized educational hospital: a qualitative approach]

Introduction: At first conference of health promotion in Ottawa in 1986, rearrangement of health providing services, especially hospitals, was introduced as a main strategy in health promotion. Health promoting hospitals project had been also proposed by the World Health Organization a decade before. According to the project, hospitals should have health promoting and disease preventing activities. In Iran, preventive services have not been defined as hospitals tasks and most efforts in hospitals are for medical treatment and rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to recognize various components of clinical preventive services in Taleghani hospital in Tehran

Methods: In this qualitative study, 20 professionals and experts were interviewed using purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using content analysis

Results: Main themes extracted from the interviews consisted of: 1] challenges and barriers of clinical preventive services; 2] role of clinic of prevention in hospitals; 3] human recourses; 4] information recourses; 5] insurance system; 6] receiving and perusing patients; and 7] educating personnel

Conclusion: Providing preventive services is a perspective of future hospitals. Important necessities for implementation of these services in our country are description of the service packages, designing necessary structures, and training human recourses in this field

[Revenue sources of educational hospitals affiliated to Iranian Medical Universities [2007]]

In term of health and economic, Hospitals is the most important sector in the healthcare providers. Therefore it is necessary to use economic analysis to achieve optimum performance. This study was done to determine the revenue sources of 150 Iranian educational hospitals during 2007. In this descriptive analytical study, data was collected by using of web based software in 150 educational hospitals affiliated to medical universities in Iran. We used the questionnaire for gathering the hospital profile which was filled by experts of budget personnel in Ministry of Health and Medical Education. 23674 active beds were in 150 selected hospitals. The total revenue was 4116 billion Iranian rial. The two major sources of total revenue were insurance organizations reimbursement [75.97%] and out of packet payment [24.03%]. Per bed revenue was 174 million rial. The composition insurance organizations reimbursement are medical services insurance organization [46.7%], social security organization [32%], army force insurance organization [5.8%], Emdad committee insurance [2.9%], traffic injuries [business insurance] [9.7%], donors funds [0.1%] and the other insurance program [2.7%]. The revenue of hospitals in Iran, highly depended on insurance reimbursement. Therefore, the hospitals confront serious problem if insurance organizations delay the reimbursement

[Evaluation of relation between health related quality of life and unintentional injuries in children]

Unintentional injury is a leading threat to children's health. No other study has documented association between health-related quality of life [HRQOL] as a personal factor and children's unintentional injury. This study examined the association between health-related quality of life [HRQOL] and unintentional injuries among children. Overall, 3375 children between 6-10 years old were randomly selected from primary schools in Ahvaz city, Iran. HRQOL was measured by 56 items taken from seven domains of TNO AZL child quality of life [TACQOL] parent form. We interviewed the parents to collect their information about incidence, cause and a brief description of injury within the past 12 months prior to the study. The response rate was 89%. There was a significant trend for increasing occurrence of injury with decreasing of HRQOL [P<0.001]. Adjusted OR for injury was significantly higher in very low [2.38, 95% CI: 1.45-3.86], low [2.18, 95% CI: 1.34-3.56], medium [1.73, 95%CI: 1.06-2.83] HRQOL groups, compared to reference group [very high HRQOL]. The median of total HRQOL [P<0.001] and all its domains [P<0.017] [except autonomous functioning] was less in injured group compared to uninjured one. This study revealed an association between HRQOL and unintentional injury among primary school children. This is a preliminary finding and so further investigations with a well-defined analytical design need to be done