There is a relationship between pesticide exposure and farmworkers' health. Well-conducted evaluations can provide an insight into how to develop and implement more effective interventions to prevent ...farmers and farmworkers' exposure to pesticides. This review aimed to summarize the literature on the effectiveness of interventions to promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure among farmers and farmworkers.
A comprehensive search on PubMed, Embase, ISI Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Agricola, NIOSHTIC, and Agris databases was performed to identify relevant studies published from 2000 to 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental studies assessing the effectiveness of interventions on a variety of outcomes related to pesticide exposure were considered. The searches were restricted to articles written in English. The methodological quality of included reviews was appraised using the Effective Public Health Practice Project quality assessment tool (EPHPP).
The initial search led to 47912 records, 31 studies of which including nine RCTs and twenty-two quasi-experimental studies met the criteria. The majority of the included studies focused on the educational/ behavioral approach. The studies that applied this approach were effective in improving the participants' knowledge and attitude; however, these interventions were less effective in terms of making changes in participants' behaviors and their risk of exposure to toxic pesticides. Multifaceted interventions were moderately effective in terms of improving farmers' and farmworkers' behaviors and reduction in exposure to toxic pesticides. We did not find any studies that had evaluated the effectiveness of engineering/technological, and legislation/enforcement interventions.
Although the majority of studies were based on an educational/behavioral approach and did not assess the effect of interventions on objective measures, the results of this review highlight the significant effectiveness of educational programs and some potential key elements of these interventions. These findings may inform policymakers to develop interventions to reduce pesticide exposure among farmers and farmworkers.
Background: Clinical evaluation in medical sciences is one of the important components of education. One of these evaluations is the clinical assessment for final-year nursing students when they are ...going to graduate and start their profession. To this end, this study aimed to explore the experiences of nursing professors and students regarding the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using a content analysis approach on 7 nursing professors and 21 nursing students who completed OSCE in 2019 at the Nursing and Midwifery School of Guilan University of Medical Sciences in northern Iran. The participants were selected using purposive sampling and the data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews. The collected data were analyzed using the content analysis approach proposed by Graneheim and Lundman. The credibility of the findings was checked using the criteria proposed by Guba and Lincoln. Results: The data analysis revealed 3 main categories and 10 subcategories: OSCE as a highly efficient test(the requirement for reviewing the courses, student benchmarking, and randomly arranged questions), OSCE challenges (the low assessment ability of the test, the influence of the nursing instructor’s prior knowledge, and having little practical experience), the solutions to improve OSCE (diversification of evaluation techniques, shortening the distance between theory and practice, the effectiveness of the OSCE scores for graduation, and the application of stress reduction methods). Conclusion: Despite some problems such as its stressful nature and its unknown format for students, OSCE seems to be effective for the clinical assessment of students before their graduation. Taking advantage of the professors’ and students’ perspectives can eliminate or reduce the problems and improve the positive points for planning and conducting the OSCE in the future.
Aging has the fastest growth rate in age groups. With age, the prevalence of a variety of chronic diseases also increases. Among chronic diseases, hypertension is one of the most important diseases ...among older adults and self-care is one of the effective approaches to control it. The aim of the present study was to apply the health belief model (HBM) in promoting self-care in hypertensive older adults to help improve self-care behaviors in this age group.
This was a quasi-experimental study. This study was conducted at comprehensive health centers in the east of Guilan province, Iran.
This intervention study was conducted on 106 elderly people with hypertension who were selected with a multi-stage random sampling method from those referred to east health centers of Gilan, Iran, in 2019. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire including demographic characteristics, HBM structure, hypertension knowledge, and hypertension self-care questionnaires. The intervention group received an educational program based on the HBM model. The questionnaire was completed by the elderly before and 2 months after the intervention. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney, Chi-square, Wilcoxon, Fisher, and ANCOVA tests usingSPSS ver.16.
There was a significant difference in knowledge and all HBM constructs before and after the intervention in the intervention group (
< 0.001). In the control group, knowledge (
-value = 0.023), self-efficacy (
-value = 0.001), perceived severity (
-value = 0.005), and cues to action (
-value = 0.008) were significantly different (
< 0.05) after the intervention.
The present study showed that HBM-based education can be considered an effective educational framework for improving self-care of the hypertensive older adults.
Older adults encounter serious psychological challenges in addition to physical problems. Reducing stress and anxiety, along with promoting happiness, is critical to maintaining the mental health of ...the elderly. Jacobson's Progressive Muscle Relaxation (JPMR) will lead to peace of mind by relieving physical stress. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of JPMR on the anxiety and happiness of older adults.
A single-group pretest-posttest design as a type of quasi-experimental study was conducted on 34 older adults living in a nursing home in Rasht, the north of Iran, in 2021. The intervention was performed one session per week, for 8 weeks. The research instruments included the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) and the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). Descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon test were used for data analysis.
After the intervention, the Mean (Standard Deviation SD(of anxiety was 4.91 (1.96), and the Mean (SD) (of happiness was 37.18 (7.92). The mean score of anxiety among older adults after the intervention was significantly lower compared to the before intervention (
= -4.73,
< 0.001). In addition, the mean score of happiness of the samples after the intervention was significantly higher compared to the before intervention (
= -5.09,
< 0.001).
JPMR has a positive effect on reducing anxiety and promoting happiness in the elderly. Developing training programs and allocating time to non-pharmacological treatments such as JPMR for the elderly living in nursing homes will help make them happier and healthier.
Objective
The widespread use of pesticides poses serious health hazards to farmers and their families. Some evidence shows that culturally sensitive interventions could be associated with improved ...outcomes; however, little is known about the effectiveness of cultural adaptations in interventions among farmers and farmworkers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to summarize strategies used in the cultural adaptation interventions addressing the reduction of pesticide exposure in farmers and farmworkers, as well as assessing the effects of these strategies.
Methods
A comprehensive systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed, Embase, Clarivate Web of Science, Scopus, NIOSHTIC, Agricola, Agris, as well as reference lists to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in English from January 2000 until March 2022. Data were extracted to examine the characteristics of interventions in terms of the cultural adaptation strategies and their effectiveness by two independent reviewers.
Results
Eleven articles from ten trials met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies were conducted in the USA (
n
= 7) and were ranked as poor quality (
n
= 5). Four of the ten studies were rated moderate, and six were rated weak. The socio-cultural and constituent-involving strategies were the most commonly reported across the included studies, followed by linguistic strategy. Six studies (seven articles) were tailored for subgroups or individuals. Overall, 8 of 10 studies reported significant changes in whole and some outcomes in the intervention groups over controls. Seven studies received moderate cultural adaptation scores which may reflect the moderate effectiveness of the interventions.
Conclusion
Our review underscored the paucity and low quality of existing studies investigating the culturally adapted interventions in reducing farmers’ and farmworkers’ pesticide exposure. Future high-quality culturally sensitive studies could increase our knowledge regarding the culture’s role in reducing pesticide exposure in farmers and farmworkers.
IntroductionThe growing population of the elderly, the rising costs of medical care and the low use of preventive services are three factors that highlight the importance of using preventive health ...care services in the Iranian population. This study aimed to determine the status of the use of preventive care services and its associated socio-demographic factors in the elderly referred to health centers. MethodsIn this analytical cross-sectional study, a number of 160 elderly people referred to health centers in East Guilan, Iran was selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were obtained from May to September, 2021 using a questionnaire containing utilization of preventive care services (9 items) and socio-demographic characteristics. ResultsThe highest and the lowest utilization rates of preventive care services among study participants were related to the blood pressure test (96.9%) and colonoscopy (17.5%), respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that only income had a significant association with performing fasting blood sugar test (p = 0.004), blood lipid test (p = 0.004), and blood pressure test (p = 0.013). Also, the associations between having an underlying disease and performing fasting blood sugar test (p = 0.032) and blood pressure test (p = 0.002), the association between gender and performing the bone mineral density test (p < 0.001), and the association between occupation and performing Pap-smear test (p = 0.011), were statistically significant. ConclusionsThe utilization rates of screening tests for most cancers, including gastrointestinal cancers, were low. Since, there were a significant association between income, disease, gender and occupation with the utilization of some preventive care services, considering them in health centers' preventive care program design might be useful.
Adherence to renal dietary restrictions is an important method for minimizing complications in dialysis patients. This study aimed to investigate the effect of teach-back versus pictorial image ...educational methods on knowledge of renal dietary restrictions among elderly hemodialysis patients in Iran. Selected markers of diet and kidney function were also measured.
Sixty-nine elderly hemodialysis patients with a low level of health literacy were randomly divided into three groups: pictorial image education, teach-back education, and usual care (controls). The intervention groups received diet education comprising four 20-30 min sessions. Subsequently, nutrition knowledge was assessed in each of the three groups by questionnaire before and 2 months after the intervention. Blood laboratory indices were obtained from the patients' medical records and compared before and 2 months after the educational intervention.
There were significant differences in the mean nutritional knowledge scores between the two intervention groups and the controls (p < 0.001). Nutrition knowledge scores were higher after educational sessions incorporating images compared to those using a teach-back strategy.
Nutrition educational strategies utilizing either pictorial images or teach-back techniques increased knowledge relating to renal nutrition.
Background and aims: Health literacy (HL) can affect individual health, health communication and error in taking medicine. The aim of this study was to determine the level of HL and associated ...factors among Iranian adults. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 240 participants over 18 years of age referring to health centers in Hamadan, west of Iran in 2015 were selected by multistage random sampling. HL was assessed by the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA). The questionnaire was completed by a trained interviewer. The independent variables were structural and intermediate social factors based on the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). Data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS version 22. Results: Average age of the participants was 30.88 ±7.38 years and 75.4% of the them were female. The total score of HL was 64.58 ±16.71 (range: 23.82-98.98). Overall, 31.7% (n=76) of the participants had adequate HL level, 32.5% (n=78) had borderline HL level and 35.8% (n=86) had inadequate HL level. Additionally, participants with higher educational levels had higher HL scores than those with lower educational levels (P<0.001). HL score was significantly higher in males than in females (P=0.017). Conclusion: HL level seems to be inadequate among Iranian adults in the west of Iran. Moreover, enhancing social determinants such as educational level seems to increase HL. The results highlighted the necessity for change and improvement in adults’ HL.
PDF
