The relationship between e-health literacy and information technology acceptance, and the willingness to share personal and health information among pregnant women

BACKGROUND

Many factors may affect pregnant women's willingness to accept information (IT) technology and share their personal and health information. One of these factors is their e-health literacy level.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationship between e-health literacy and IT acceptance, as well as the willingness of pregnant women to share their information.

METHODS

This survey was conducted among pregnant women visiting hospitals and private physicians' offices in Zahedan, Iran in 2019. Data were collected using a 4-part questionnaire with 66 questions. The data were analyzed using descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential (Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression) statistics.

RESULTS

The mean scores of electronic health literacy, information technology acceptance, and willingness of pregnant women to share personal and health information were 27.43 ± 5.82, 145.49 ± 25.72, and 19.16 ± 5.47, respectively. There was a significant relationship between IT acceptance and information sharing, which means that with increasing IT acceptance, people were more willing to share their information. Also, the results showed that with the decrease in economic well-being, the willingness to share personal and health information decreases.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that with the increase in e-health literacy of pregnant women, their IT acceptance grows. Increasing IT acceptance improves their willingness to share their information. Setting and updating information-sharing rules and security mechanisms with the participation of people can help reduce concerns and increase public trust. Healthcare policymakers can encourage the use of health IT in the prevention and treatment of diseases by providing relevant education and informing people.

A pragmatically before-after trial of tele-visits vs face-to-face visits for chronic patients during the COVID-19 pandemic: patient-reported adherence

BACKGROUND

During the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic patients are at a higher risk of contamination with the virus. Specific strategies are required to restrict these patients' exposure to contaminated areas and improve medication adherence. One suggested strategy is tele-visiting, which is effective for the continuity of care and medication adherence during the pandemic.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to explore the effect of tele-visiting services via telephone on chronic patients' medication adherence before and after implementing a tele-visit program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

All patients received the tele-visit twice on the phone during the study. To compare patients' medication adherence in face-to-face visits and tele-visit, an adapted version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 was used. Paired-samples T-test was run to measure participants' medication adherence before and after the tele-visit program.

RESULTS

The tele-visit was run for 314 patients. The participants' adherence score before the intervention was 60.02, and after the intervention was 59.9. As the paired-sample T-test results showed, the difference between these two was not statistically significant. Moreover, medication adherence was not significantly associated with any of these variables: BMI, occupation, comorbidities, duration of disease, age, gender, marital status, and education level.

CONCLUSIONS

The present findings showed that chronic patients' medication adherence did not differ significantly in face-to-face visits and tele-visiting. During the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the effectiveness of tele-visiting services, they can be used effectively to lower the transmission rate of the disease and reduce healthcare providers' burden.

Evaluating the demographic and clinical minimum data sets of Iranian National Electronic Health Record

BACKGROUND

Designing a standard data set is necessary to overcome the dispersion of data among different health information systems. The objective of this study was to evaluate the current demographic and clinical minimum data sets (MDSs) of Iranian National Electronic Health Record (known as SEPAS) and to identify most necessary data elements.

METHODS

Data were collected using a list of current demographic and clinical data of SEPAS and a self-administered questionnaire. All faculty members of six health related fields and the hospital authorities, and IT and HIM administrators of 6 hospitals in Kerman University of Medical Sciences were invited to participate in this study. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by six medical informatics and HIM experts and the reliability was determined by Cronbach's alpha (α =0.95). SPSS v18 was used to generate descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Survey results indicated that 15 data elements should become mandatory elements of MDS for communicating data to SEPAS. These elements include patient's name, surname, father's name, nationality, cell number, job, residential address, residence place, passport number (for non-Iranian patients), diagnosis date, death time, death place and the unit of the hospital where the patient died. Moreover, participants suggested 33 additional demographic and clinical data elements to be communicated mandatorily to SEPAS.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study showed that the minimum data sets of Iranian national electronic health record needs to be revised. Using the proposed MDSs by this study can improve the quality and efficiency of information and reduce redundancy by adding necessary data and preventing communication of unnecessary data. The method employed in this study can be used for investigating, refining and completing the MDSs of other health information systems.

Patients' preferences for receiving laboratory test results

OBJECTIVES

The laboratory, as a diagnostic department in the hospital, plays an important role in the treatment and prevention of diseases. Paying attention to patients' preferences for communication of test results may provide a better and more responsive system for delivering these results. This study aimed to identify patient preferences regarding receiving their laboratory test results electronically and to identify the reasons behind their choice.

STUDY DESIGN

Descriptive-analytical study.

METHODS

This study was carried out in 2015 with 200 patients who had access to the internet and had been referred at least once previously to the hospital laboratory department to receive their test results. Data were collected through an expert-validated questionnaire, and its reliability was confirmed by test-retest (P = .8). Data were analyzed using χ2 and marginal independence SPSS and R software.

RESULTS

Ninety-eight percent of participants preferred to be notified by short message service when their test results were ready. All participants preferred to receive their test results online, and 82.5% (n = 165) preferred to receive both normal and abnormal test results this way. The main reason for receiving results online was time savings, which was reported by 77% of participants, followed by lowering the chance of missing the results (31%). About 40% of participants thought e-mail notification was more secure than accessing the results through a hospital website.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings showed that although patients wanted to benefit from online services for receiving their test results, they were concerned about confidentiality and security. Before using online technologies, security measures necessary to protect patient privacy and to gain the trust of patients should be defined.

Job satisfaction and its influential factors in dental academic members in tehran, iran

Background:

Assessment of job satisfaction of the faculty members and its underlying factors may increase career fulfillment and raise the educational and research productivity, leading to higher quality of dental services at the community level, ultimately improving public oral health status.

Aim:

This study assessed job satisfaction and its influential factors in dental academic members in Tehran.

Subjects and Methods:

The job satisfaction level of 203 faculty members was assessed using a Likert scale questionnaire from 0 to 4, with 4 representing very satisfied and 0 not at all satisfied. The analysis of variance was used to compare the responses among dental faculty members of three different universities. The impact of age, gender, academic rank, employment status and the date of employment on the overall faculty job satisfaction was identified by multiple linear regression analysis.

Results:

The mean professional satisfaction score among faculty members was 1.5 (0.5) out of four. Among the studied underlying factors, only the date of employment was seen to have a statistically significant impact on the faculties’ overall job satisfaction (P= 0.05). There was no difference in job compensation observed between the three dental faculties. Dissatisfying aspects of the academic work included educational and research policies, monetary strategies, quality of leadership and administration, promotion and tenure policies, job security, educational environment, equipments, and facilities. The only satisfying factor was the interaction between faculty colleagues and students.

Conclusion:

Faculty members of Tehran Dental Schools are dissatisfied with their work environments in Tehran Dental Schools. Issues such as salary and remuneration, facilities, equipments, promotion and tenure policies are strongly believed to account for the dissatisfaction.

Assessment of personnel absorbed dose at production of medical radioisotopes by a cyclotron

The medical radioisotope (201)Tl is produced by a cyclotron through the (203)Tl(p, 3n)(201)Pb reaction in the nuclear medicine research group of Agricultural, Medical and Industrial Research Schools in Iran. The produced (201)Pb decays to (201)Tl by electron capture. One of the most important problems that may occur is malfunction of a part of target or beam line, so that it needs the bombardment to be stopped and the problem fixed. In this work, induced radioactivity of the target, aluminium case of target, beam line and concrete walls of the thallium target room were calculated by Monte Carlo method. Then by using the results of the Monte Carlo simulation, the whole body absorbed dose to cyclotron personnel during repair and after stopping the bombardment, were assessed at different places of target room.

Separation of109Cd from silver targets by nanohematite

109Cd was produced at a cyclotronvianatAg(p,n)109Cd reaction by irradiation of an electroplated target with 15 MeV protons. The obtained yield was 70 kBq/μA h. The separation was performed using hematite nano-particles as sorbent which were synthesized by a solid-state chemical reaction method. The effect of different parameters, such as pH and the sorbent concentration, on extraction efficiency were investigated. The phase morphology, nanostructure and size of nano-particles were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The chemical and radionuclidic purity of109Cd was determined by ICP-AES and HPGe detector gamma-ray spectrometry, respectively.

Kinetic spectrophotometric determination of traces of sulfide in nonionic micellar medium

A sensitive kinetic spectrophotometric method for the determination of ng amounts of sulfide has been developed based on the reduction of Azure A by sulfide in the presence of Brij-35 at pH 7. The decrease in absorbance of Azure A at 600 nm is proportional to the concentration of sulfide over the range 25-1,400 ng mL(-1). The variables affecting the rate of the reaction were investigated and the optimum conditions were established. The method is simple, rapid, precise, sensitive, and widely applicable. The limit of detection is 17 ng mL(-1), and the relative standard deviation of seven determinations of 500 ng mL(-1) sulfide was 2.1%. The method was applied to the determination of sulfide in spring water.