Use of meta-anaglysis to determining the associated factors of an outbreak occurred in the summer 2005 in Iran

According to the report of Iranian Center of Disease Control, in the summer of 2005 an outbreak of cholera [Inaba serotype] occurred in Iran. The outbreak lasted the mid of September. The aim of this study was to use the result of different studies performed during this period to determine source of infection. This is a meta-analysis study, which studies performed in Qum, Arak, Karaj, Golestan and Ghazvin were eligible. All of these studies were case control ones performed during the August 2005. The total of cases were 531 Pooled odds ratios was used to estimate by fixed and random method. All computations were performed by Stata 8 software. The estimated pooled odds ratios resulted from 5 differemt studies were used in the meta-analysis as the following: travelling [1.64; 95% CI: 0.98-1.88], non-pasteurized ice cream [0.88; 95%CI: 0.48-1.61], post toilet hand washing [3.72; 95% CI: 0.86-16.05], eating meal outside home [2.38; 95% CI: 1.46-3.90], raw fruit eating [0.98; 95% CI: 0.42-2.18] and raw vegetables use [5.36; 95%CI: 2.4-12]. According to the results of this study raw vegetable use and having meal outside home were significantly associated to the cholera in mentioned provinc

ways of research promotion in Sina educational-medical hospital

The objective of this study is to clarify the opinions of scientific board members of Sina university hospital about medical research and the ways of promoting these researches. This is a grounded theory study in which we used in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Scientific board members and different authorities of the hospital such as the chief of hospital and the deputy of education were participated in the study. We used three different FGDs. Each group included about 5 people. We also interviewed the chief, the deputy of education and the head of clinical research center of the hospital. Most of the participants in our FGDs believed that the most important factor for research promotion in the hospital was preparation of a data base of patients. They also mentioned that, different research workshops are important for empowering scientific board members in research. According to our study the most important strategies for research promotion in Sina hospital are data bank preparation, providing repeated research workshops, revising the bureaucratic process of proposal approvals, revising the manner of evaluation of scientific board members and more participation of the department of epidemiology in clinical researches