Diagnosis, requests and timing of 503 psychiatric consultations in two general hospitals

The high comorbidity of medical and psychiatric diagnoses in the general hospital population requires collaboration between various medical fields to provide comprehensive health care. This study aims to find the rate of psychiatric consultations, their timing and overall diagnostic trend in comparison to previous studies. Tehran University of Medical Sciences has got an active psychiatric consultation-liaison service which includes services provided by four faculty psychiatrists [two full-time and two part-time]. This study was done in two general hospitals by simple sampling in available cases. For each consultation, a board-certified faculty psychiatrist conducted a clinical evaluation based on DSM-IV-TR. Other than psychiatric diagnoses, socio-demographic variables, relative consultation rates, reasons for referral, medical diagnoses and the time stay after admission were assessed. Among 503 patients who were visited by the consultation-liaison service, there were 54.3% female with mean age of 39.8 years. In 90.1% of consultations, at least one DSM-IV-TR diagnosis was made. The most frequent diagnosis groups were mood disorder [43.5%], adjustment disorder [10.9%] and cognitive disorder [7.6%]. In about 10.9% of the consultations, multiple psychiatric diagnoses were made. The mean length of hospital stay before the consultation was 12.56 days [range=1-90, SD=13]. Based on our findings, the mood and cognitive disorders still remain major foci of consultation-liaison practice in general hospitals; however our findings showed high rate of adjustment disorders diagnosis and ambiguous request for psychiatric consultation which need more interdisciplinary interaction

[Lifetime prevalence of tobacco use among high school students in Iran: a systematic review]

Objective: The prevalence of smoking in the adolescence is a valuable indicator for prediction of national burden of smoking in the future. The aim of this systematic review is to determine the prevalence of lifetime smoking among high school students in Iran

Methods: Various search methods have been used including searching Pubmed, ISI, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Embase, IranMedex, IranPsych and database on drug abuse, as well as hand-searching. All original researches, which had described lifetime use of cigarette, hookah, and pipe among high school students were included in the study with no restriction on date of publication, and were qualitatively assessed. Subsequent to data extraction, heterogeneity test was carried out on indicators for which more than two studies were found and meta-analyses were performed

Results: In total, 18 studies were included in this review. The combined prevalence of lifetime cigarette smoking for boys, girls and total high school students were calculated as 30.9% [95% confidence interval [CI]: 25-36.8], 14% [95% CI: 7-20.9] and 21% [95% CI: 15.1-26.9], respectively. The combined prevalence of lifetime cigarette smoking for boys was significantly different [P<0.001] in the year 2001 and before [38.6%], with the years after 2002 [21.5%]

Conclusion: In Iran, the prevalence of smoking in this age range is lower than many other countries and in recent years, a decreasing trend was found in boys. These findings can be attributed to the national control and prevention strategies. However, some studies have several qualitative limitations, which points to the necessity of high quality repeated surveys in the future

Status of mental health research concerning women in Iran over the past 3 decades

The purpose of this scientometric study was a quantitative analysis of mental health research concerning women in Iran. All scientific papers published in a 30year- period [1973-2002], in both national as well as international scientific journals, were brought into consideration for this study. Articles are indexed in the "Databank for Iranian Mental Health Researches [Iran Psych]. The articles in which the samples or the main subjects were females, considered as mental health in women. Authors assessed these studies for the following data: year of publication and language, specific fields and subject topics, research design, location of data collection, financial supports, gender and academic degree and the status of collaboration among authors. Out of 3031 articles, 239 [%7.9] were related to mental health in women. Most have been published in general medical journals and the overall trend of publications shows arise. The first authors in two - third of the articles were women and the most common area of research was psychology. The most common research topic was psychological factors affecting medical condition, especially gynecological and obstetrical problems. There were a few articles about old age female mental health or occupational mental health. There were no mental health professionals among the authors of 20% of the articles. It is suggested that collaboration should increase among mental health groups and other clinicians. Subject topics about women in rural area, health service, occupational mental health and elderly female need further research

[ bibliometric study of scientific mental health journals of Iran]

The aim of this project was to appraise the scientific mental health journals published in Iran and also to present a general profile of their characteristics. The journals evaluated in the study were published from 1990 to 2003. The scientific journals in the domain of mental health published in Iran and circulated until the implementation of this study were identified by library references, data banks, internet sites, and the editorial offices of the publications. The variables in the study were divided into three main groups: publication characteristics of the journals, distinctiveness of journals' license holders and personnel, and finally specificities of journals' contents. 23 out of 800 evaluated journals met the inclusionary criteria for this project. Less than 1/3 of the journals possess the official academic ranking of Publication Commission granted by Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology or Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education. None of these periodicals are indexed in any of the credible information banks. Nine journals did not have International Standard Serial Number [ISSN] and five journals had no English abstracts. Eleven journals were published by universities; five were published by governmental organizations and seven were funded by private organizations or scientific societies. During the study period, 1008 research articles were published in the journals. The average number of articles binded in each issue was 2.70[ +/- 1.2].The average number of articles in journals with official academic ranking certificate was higher than the journals without the certificate.There seems to be a relatively adequate number and variety of scientific mental health journals in the country,but too few articles are printed in them. For further progress in the upcoming years, the followings are suggested: quality improvement of the journals, more publication of indigenous research articles, publication of domestic periodicals in English, and indexing them on credible international information banks