Journal of community health research

132-140

Authors: Hamid Reza Samadifard, Mohammad Narimani

Introduction: General health comprised features that act as a shield in the face of stressful life situations and help couples have better performance in these situations. The present study was conducted to determine the role of cognitive belief, fusion and distortion in predicting the general health of couples. Methods: Descriptive research method was used in this study. Population of the study included all couples in the city of Ardabil in 2016. Three hundred and eighty individuals (190 couples) were selected from parks and other public places through available sampling and the use of Krejcie and Morgan table. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analysis. Results: The results of this study showed a significant relationship between meta-cognitive beliefs (r = 0.47, p < 0.05), cognitive fusion (r = 0.33, p < 0.05) and cognitive distortion (r = 0.28, p < 0.05) with general health. Beta coefficients for predictor variables indicated that metacognitive belief (β = 0.34), cognitive fusion (β = 0.28) and cognitive distortion (β = 0.21) can predict the general health of couples (p < 0.05). Conclusion: From the results, it can be concluded that couples with higher levels of meta-cognitive beliefs, cognitive fusion and cognitive distortion had lower general health.

150-164

Authors: Hodjat Hamidi, Rasoul Moradi

Introduction: Mobile personal health is a rapidly growing area of health information technology. Mobile personal health users are able to manage their own health data and communicate with doctors in order to improve healthcare quality and efficiency. In recent years, information and communication technologies improvements, along with mobile Internet, offering anywhere and anytime connectivity, play a key role on modern healthcare solutions. Moreover, data on genetic diseases are no exception to this set of data. Therefore, appropriate algorithm and methods of data analysis should be designed. Methods: The main objective of this research is to investigate the effective factors on more efficiency of medical data. In this article, in addition to analyzing and evaluating the best data mining algorithms used in the medical field, a new combined approach has been provided in order to predict the risk of transmitting genetic diseases. A questionnaire was developed for this task, based on the rigorous study of scientific literature concerning pregnancy and applications available on the market, with 12 data items. The data items contain calendars, genetic diseases and cardiovascular diseases information, health habits, counters, diaries, mobile features, security, backup, configuration and architectural design. Results: Health telematics is a growing issue that is becoming a major improvement on patient lives, especially in elderly, disabled, and chronically ill. The results of the patients clustering were obtained using the risk of transmitting genetic diseases and according to the criteria of similarity in the ways of transmission as well as using a decision tree to predict whether the individual with the related characteristics has the likelihood to transmit the disease or not. 300 participants were recruited, 92% routinely used and 91% owned a mobile phone. 99% were willing to receive mobile health (m-health) advice, and 79% favored mobile medication reminders. 65.2% would send home recorded information on their blood pressure, weight, medication use and lifestyle to a doctor. 81.9% trusted the confidentiality of m-health data, while 77.1% had no concerns about the privacy of their information. Conclusion: M-health system proposes healthcare delivery anytime and anywhere, overcoming geographical, temporal, and even organizational barriers with low and affordable costs. This study reviewed the state-of-the-art on m-health system and technologies.

175-184

Authors: Aboobakr Jafarnejad, Narges Khanjani, Batool Tirgari

Introduction: Addiction is one of the major crises in the world which has many victims and imposes serious damage on the family and society, especially among children who are the most vulnerable social stratum. The aim of this study was to determine the possible causes of drug addiction among children in Kerman. Methods: This case-control study was conducted as a qualitative study. Ninety children aged 6 to 16 years were enrolled. The case group included 30 addicted children supported by the Welfare Organization. The control group included two groups of 30 children, one selected from the Welfare Organization and the other from across the city. All participants were male and groups were matched for age. Then, the probable causes of addiction were compared between these two groups. Data were analyzed by using SPSS22 and by chi-square tests and logistic regression. Results: The mean age of children was 10.8 ± 2.4 in the case group, 11.4 ± 1.8 in the park control and 12.8 ± 1.5 in the welfare center control group. All participants were male. The results revealed that there were significant statistical differences between the addicted and non-addicted children in regard to parent’s religious beliefs, parent imprisonment, history of addiction in families, visiting the park alone and parental employment. Conclusion: Strengthening religious beliefs of parents, teaching life skills to children and their parents, parental control on children, tracking and monitoring the peers; and promoting collaborations between the policymakers, the Welfare Organization, the Municipality, the Universities of Medical Sciences and the Police Force can help to reduce and control addiction among children.

192-195

Authors: Jung Yeon Lee, Judith S. Brook, Kerstin Pahl, David W. Brook

Introduction: In the United States (US), there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease (STD) infections each year. Untreated STDs can lead to serious long-term adverse health consequences, especially for young women. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that undiagnosed and untreated STDs cause at least 24,000 women in the US each year to become infertile. This clearly is a public health issue of great concern for young women. Methods: The current cross-sectional study included a community sample consisting of 343 female participants (50% African Americans, 50% Puerto Ricans) at their mean age of 39 years. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations of time-varying factors within-person (e.g., substance use) and fixed effects factors between-persons (e.g., race/ethnicity) with the number of male sexual partners. Results: Alcohol use (b=0.14, p<0.01), cannabis use (b=1.10, p<0.01), marital status – unmarried (b=-0.16, p<0.05), and race/ethnicity – African American (b=-0.20, p<0.01) were significantly related to having a higher number of male sex partners in the past year. Conclusions: From a public health perspective, treatment and prevention programs for sexual risk behavior focused on substance use as well as socio-cultural factors (i.e., marital status, race/ethnicity) may be more effective than programs focused only on substance use.