Public participation in confronting natural disasters in Khuzestan

Community participation is one of the important bases of disaster management in confronting natural disasters. Khuzestan is one of the most important border provinces in the country that is highly prone to natural disasters. This research aimed to determine the status of people's participation in Khuzestan to respond to natural disasters from the viewpoints of officials. This study was conducted in four stages. First, the status of the province was evaluated regarding the occurrence of natural disasters. In the second stage, the province situation is addressed from the perspectives of related organizations, institutions and active NGOs in disasters. By using qualitative study and in-depth interviews in the third stage, the officials' views on how to attract people to participate in confronting natural disasters was collected. In the final stage, after analyzing the obtained results, some strategies are presented in order to use these guidelines and recommendations and also to prevent the probable human casualties and damage in future disasters. According to the managers' different views about disaster management issues and lack of a common terminology to apply in this field, the process of policymaking, coordination, planning, organizing and training has been undertaken in different ways in the organizations. Also, in the governmental system, the role of people as the most important stakeholders has not been considered appropriately which makes the governments feel more responsible for confronting natural disasters

[Vulnerability analysis of women's health in disasters and recommended strategies for risk reduction: a qualitative study]

Women are one of the most vulnerable groups in disasters. The aim of this study was to identify the influential factors of the vulnerability of women and proposed strategies for risk reduction the vulnerability of women's health in disasters. This study conducted in 2007 and consisted of two methodologies. The first was a narrative review and the second was a qualitative study [focus group discussion] to determine the views and opinions of decision makers with respect to influential factors and strategies for improving approaches of women's vulnerability in disasters. The main findings of this study were lack of presence of women especially in the responsible government agencies, lack of needs assessment regarding women in disaster situation, lack of legal support of women, lack of credit allocation to women in disaster management, absence or lack of female directors and experts in domain of disaster management, dispatch often men relief workers to affected areas without women's in the team, lack of specialized training centers for women's relief workers. The main strategies that could reduce the vulnerability of women in disasters are strengthening public education, enable women through communication networks, reinforce practical skills for women facing disaster, creating and reinforcing women's NGOs for the purpose of forming its humanitarian activities in crisis prevention, legislation to support of women, to conduct appropriate researches and presenting the results to relevant authorities to take advantage of the plan to deal with disaster [e.g. to determine the needs of women survivors of the disaster], allocation of quotas to women for employment in the relevant organizations, defined some positions responsible for women in the category headquarter and dispatched teams to undergo disaster regions, and train dispatched teams to improved their skills in all areas related to women's health especially in reproductive health in disaster and crisis situations

[ successful reconstructive surgery of a chronic wound with a thirty- years history of a burn scar: a case report study]

A major cause of chronic wound is deep ulcer resulted from burn scar. Burn wounds that do not heal within 3 weeks can change to burn scars. These scars often remain in the inflammatory phase for a long and do not have function of normal skin. So, mild trauma to this scar can cause tissue damage that leads to chronic wound. In modern surgery, after 7 days total burned tissue excision can help to lead primary healing. In this paper we present a successful surgical treatment of a rare case with a history of multiple chronic wounds on his left leg from 30 years ago in underlying burn ulcers from 60 years ago

[Study of waiting time in Shahid Dastani's specialized clinics of Shariati hospital using by six sigma model]

Waiting time is one of the factors affecting patient satisfaction of service quality which is offered. In This Study waiting times referred to some clinics like Shahid Dastani integrated clinical training center, treatment and researching center like Shariati Hospital was performed. Six sigma model in four stages together with qualitative and quantitative methods was used in this study. The study population consisted of the all patient referred to specialist clinics like Shahid Dastani during every week. We selected 10% of all patients as a sample size referred to specialist clinics [n= 266]. Data were collected by interviewing and filling the checklists using a stopwatch. Measured waiting times were registered in a blank form. Data entry and analysis were performed using SPSS. Mean and standard deviation of waiting time were 121 +/- 33.73 minutes. The most important processes from referred entrance to leaving the physician's office consisted of comprehensive workflow processes, overall workflow, times forming, funds, medical records, previous bloom times, refunds and discount at all costs, and complaints. The first three factors of prolonged time form health care providers and referees view are simultaneous increase in the number of referees, physicians being on time and shortage of doctors. This collection extends the time of giving services by clinic, providing human resources and modifying the physical spaces which were some of recommendations to reduce waiting times

Application of honey in treatment of surgical wound of pilonidal sinus: a randomized clinical trial

To compare the effects of honey dressing versus saline-soaked dressing on healing of Pilonidal Sinus surgical wound. In a randomized controlled clinical trials we compared topical application of honey with saline-soaked gauze of 24 patients with surgical wound of Pilonidal Sinuses. The group treated with honey [n=12] had infection eradicated and achieved complete healing compared with the control group[n=12]. The findings showed that honey gave better control of infection but there was no difference between the average duration of hospitalizations with the honey treatment and control group but response to treatment and alleviation of morbidity in intervention group were faster. This RCT indicate the effectiveness of honey in rapidly clearing infection from wounds, with no adverse effects to slow the healing process; there is also some evidence to suggest that honey may actively promote healing. However, further research is needed to optimise the effective use of this agent in clinical practice