RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate beliefs about use of medications for a sample of Iraqi psoriasis patients, and to examine the association between these beliefs and selected patient's related factors. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 300 patients with diagnosed psoriasis. Participants were recruited at the center of Dermatology and Venereology, Medical City in Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq. Patients' mean age was 35.15years (±10.54). Beliefs about medicines were measured by the Arabic version of Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire. RESULTS: Most the patients (76.7%) had strong beliefs in the need (acceptance beliefs) for their psoriasis medicines (specific-necessity score higher than specific-concern), whereas 15.0% of patients had specific-concern score higher than specific-necessity and 8.3% of patients had specific-necessity score equal to specific-concern. At the same time, 74.4% of the patients believed that the medicines disrupt their lives and (35.6%) of them had concerns about the possibility of becoming addicted on these medicines. Many other patients were worried about the long-term consequences of the medicines (58.7%). In addition, 31.0% of the participants believe that all medicines are poisoning, and that they do more harm than good. Finally, many of the participants believed that physicians prescribe too many medicines (46.7%), and they can minimize the number of prescribed medicines by spending more time with their patients (32.6%). CONCLUSIONS: Female gender and longer disease duration have direct association with specific necessity, while psoriasis severity has a direct association with specific concern. In conclusion, Beliefs about medications and habit strength are important modifiable drivers to enhance adherence and clinical outcomes in the control of psoriasis.
RESUMO
Objective. To explore for the first time the extent to which Iraqi pharmacy students and faculty use Facebook and university email for academic communications, and to examine factors influencing utilization within the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Methods. An electronic survey was administered to convenience samples of students and faculty of six Iraqi public schools and colleges of pharmacy in 2015. Results. Responses included 489 student and 128 faculty usable surveys. Both students and faculty use Facebook more than university email for academic communications. Less than a third of the faculty used university email. Students used Facebook for academic purposes twice as much as faculty. Conclusion. Absence of university email in Iraqi schools and colleges of pharmacy makes Facebook essential for faculty-student communications. The majority (71.1% to 82%) of respondents perceived that Facebook was easy to use. Three TAM variables (intention to use, attitude toward use and perceived usefulness) had significant positive associations with actual use of both Facebook messaging and university email.
