Qualitative study on nutritional knowledge of primary-school children and mothers in Tehran

The nutritional education demands of primary-school children in Tehran were evaluated in a qualitative study, through 20 focus group discussions, 16 for children and 4 for mothers, among 128 children aged 6-11 years and 32 mothers in 8 primary schools in Tehran. Children knew about the advantages of different food groups, including helping digestion, growth and increasing intelligence. They obtained their knowledge mainly from their parents and television, as well as books, teachers and friends. Mothers thought the sources that had most effect on children's nutritional knowledge were television advertisements, parents and classmates. Most of the children claimed that they preferred to learn about nutrition from their parents and television, e.g. children's programmes and advertisements

Evaluation of indirect fluorescent antibody assay for detection of Nocardia

Nocardiosis is an acute or suppurative chronic disease caused by an aerobic, gram-positive, weakly acid-fast and soil-borne filamentous and organism. Nocardia asteroides which is the dangerous and most frequently pathogen, infects humans through the respiratory tract. The bacterium is primarily an opportunistic pathogen that causes the infection in patients with underlying immunodeficiencies. The main purpose of the study was to detect antibody titre against Nocardia in all study groups, using indirect immunofluorescent assay [IFA]. Correlation between the antibody titre against Nocardia with age, sex, occupation, and chronic pulmonary infection and corticosteroid therapy patients was also investigated. The present investigation is a Cross-Sectional study conducted on a population consisted of 300 subjects including 200 hospitalized individuals patients, nurses and healthcare workers from Imam Khomeini hospital, and 100 health adult blood donors. None of the patients had already been diagnosed to be affected by Nocardia. Our results demonstrated four patients suffering from different infections, including TB, mycetoma, chronic pulmonary and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases were IFA positive. None of the high risk hospital personnel, who were working in close proximity to the areas infected with Nocardia, were found to be IFA positive. Meanwhile there was no positive result in a group of patients [n=34] who were under corticosteroid therapy. Finally, considering the small sample size of the IFA positive cases no significant association between the IFA results and age, sex, occupation and clinical conditions of the subjects could be established

Patient's Knowledge, Perception and Belief about the Reasons of Low Back Pain

Patients with chronic low back pain [LBP] hold various knowledge, perceptions and beliefs about their pain which are based on prior learning and social conditions. Since LBP is a bio- psycho-social phenomenon and there are not any reports about awareness and attitude of Iranian patients' views regarding it, this descriptive study was employed to earn this information P to apply its results in health education planning. For data gathering, deeply interviewing with 24 patients were performed. Volunteer patients were from Rheumatology Research Center of Tehran University of Medical Science from July 1st to Sep 1st 2003 who had inclusive criteria such as: 18 years old or more, suffering from LBP more than 90 d and not having experience of surgical operation in last two years. Interviews were individually held at rheumatic disease center which was convenient to the participants and were being continued to earn data saturation regarding patient's knowledge, perception and belief about LBP. The findings showed that the most popular risky behavior for LBP was hard manual activities, also this study revealed that knowledge of the patients about LBP and its risk factors was little and LBP was not understood by the majority of patients [74%].Only a few people [11%] believed risk factors and risky behaviors could deteriorate it. From this study it can be concluded that health educators should emphasize on perception and attitude of the patients regarding LBP for changing behavior and complying of recommended body mechanics