Background and ObjectiveDiabetes is a chronic disease in which patients require lifelong self-care behaviors. The present study offset to determine the effect of educational intervention based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) on promoting self-care behaviors of type 2 diabetes patients in Ilam, Iran 2014.MethodsA quasi-experimental research was conducted based on HBM in which 70 type 2 diabetic patients from Ilam, western Iran in 2014 were selected by multi-stage random sampling. A self-designed questionnaire was used, and pre-test was administered, subsequently, the educational intervention sessions were provided in the form of presentation, questions and answers, group discussion, and practical demonstrations in four sessions over a period of one month. Two months after the intervention, the post-tests were administered. The data were analyzed via SPSS 20 applying independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test, and univariate and multivariate regressions at a significance level of less than 0.05.ResultsThe mean scores of susceptibility, severity, perceived benefits and barriers, self-efficacy, and self-care behaviors were at average and lower levels before the intervention; nonetheless, after the educational intervention, the mean score of each HBM construct and the self-care behaviors significantly increased (p<0.001).ConclusionHealth education through HBM promotes the self-care behaviors of patients with type 2 diabetes.

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Background: In recent years, methamphetamine use has increased noticeably in Iran, and this can make harmful consequences for the health of individuals and society. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the consequences of regular methamphetamine use in Tehran. Methods: This study was conducted based on a conventional content analysis approach. Data were collected through observation and in-depth interviews with 20 regular adult users of methamphetamine in Tehran (including 15 males and 5 females). Participants were selected using snowball sampling and purposeful sampling, which continued until data saturation. Guba and Lincoln's criteria were used to assess the strength of the study. Results: The extraction of the codes resulted in three main categories: (1)the short-term consequences, consisting of the sub-categories of individual and social consequences, (2) the long-term consequences, consisting of the subcategories of psychological and physical consequences, high-risk behaviors, severely decayed memory and changes in the eating pattern, and (3) hallucinations and delusions including the sub-categories of visual and auditory hallucinations, persecutory delusions and delusion of having supernatural power. Conclusion: Regular methamphetamine use may have serious adverse effects on the overall health of individuals. It is therefore highly recommended that educational programs must implement with the use of methamphetamine in the high-risk groups in order to raise awareness and change attitudes about the short and long term consequences. is highly recommended.

Amongst the various pollutants in the air, particulate matters (PM) have significant adverse effects on human health. The current research is based on existing epidemiological literature for quantitative estimation of the current health impacts related to particulate matters in some selected principal Iranian megacities. In order to find the influence of air pollution on human health, we used the AirQ software tool presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH), Bilthoven Division. The adverse health outcomes used in the study consist of mortality (all causes excluding accidental causes), due to cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory (RES) diseases, and morbidity (hospital admissions for CVD and RES causes). For this purpose, hourly PM10 data were taken from the monitoring stations in eight study cities during 2011 and 2012. Results showed annual average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 in all megacities exceeded national and international air quality standards and even reached levels nearly ten times higher than WHO guidelines in some cities. Considering the short-term effects, PM2.5 had the maximum effects on the health of the 19,048,000 residents of the eight Iranian cities, causing total mortality of 5,670 out of 87,907 during a one-year time-period. Hence, reducing concentrations and controlling air pollution, particularly the presence of particles, is urgent in these metropolises.