Context: Labor is among the most painful events in females' lives. Labor pain (LP) is alleviated using both pharmacological and non -pharmacological methods. The current study aimed at reviewing clinical trials in Iran as well as other countries on the effects of acupressure, aromatherapy, and massage therapy on LP.Evidence Acquisition: In the current review study, online databases such as SID, Iranmedex, Magiran, IranDoc, Cochrane library, PubMed, and Google Scholar were searched to retrieve studies published before 2017 in Persian or English language. Search keywords were labor pain, acupressure, aromatherapy, and massage as well as their Persian equivalents. Retrieved clinical trials were appraised using the Jadad checklist. Data were analyzed qualitatively. Results:In total, 46 clinical trials were enrolled. Most studies reported the positive effects of acupressure, aromatherapy, and massage therapy on labor pain. The most frequently used therapies were aromatherapy with lavender essential oil and acupressure on the LI4 and SP6 points.Conclusions: Acupressure, aromatherapy, and massage therapy were effective in alleviating labor pain. These techniques are mostly safe without serious side effects for parturient females and their babies. Therefore, they can be used to alleviate labor pain.

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INTRODUCTION:Studies about globalization and internationalization demonstrate different attitudes in explaining these concepts. Since there is no consensus among Iranian specialists about these concepts, the purpose of this study is to explain the concepts of internationalization and globalization in Iran.MATERIALS AND METHODS:This study is a systematic review done in the first half of 2016. To explain the concept of globalization and internationalization, articles in Scientific Information D atabase, Magiran database, and Google Scholar were searched with the keywords such as globalization, scientific exchange, international cooperation, curriculum exchange, student exchange, faculty exchange, multinational cooperation, transnational cooperation, and collaborative research. Articles, used in this study, were in Persian and were devoted to internationalization and globalization between 2001 and 2016. The criterion of discarding the articles was duplicity.RESULTS:As many as 180 Persian articles were found on this topic. After discarding repetitive articles, 64 remained. Among those, 39 articles mentioned the differences between globalization and internationalization. Definitions of globalization were categorized in four categories, including globalization, globalizing, globalization of higher education, and globalizing of higher education. Definitions about internationalization were categorized in five categories such as internationalization, internationalization of higher education, internationalization of the curriculum, internationalization of curriculum studies, and internationalization of curriculum profession.CONCLUSION:The spectrum of the globalization of higher education moves from dissonance and multipolarization to unification and single polarization of the world. One end of the spectrum, which is unification and single polarization of the world, is interpreted as globalization. The other side of the spectrum, which is dissonance and multipolarization, is interpreted as globalizing. The definition of internalization is the same as that of globalizing. In other words, it is possible to say that internalization is similar to globalizing but different from globalization.

Background Patients with the thalassemia have a basic requirement for self-efficacy regarding their treatment procedure. The present study aimed to compare the effect of self-care education via a smartphone application and lectures on the self-efficacy of patients with thalassemia. Methods In the present quasi-experimental study, 99 patients with thalassemia at Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Yasuj, Iran, in 2019 who were eligible to enter the study, were selected. The block randomization was done with the block sizes of 3, 6, and 9, and participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups: smartphone application (A), lecture intervention (B), and control (c). Smartphone application and lecture interventions were performed for intervention groups A and B, respectively, during 8 weeks. Scherer's self-efficacy measure was used to collect the data at baseline and eight weeks after the intervention. Data were analyzed by SPSS-version 25 software using Paired t-test, Wilcoxon and Kruskal–Wallis tests. Results Ninety-nine patients with thalassemia with a mean (SD) age of 25 (6) and 58 females (58.59%) participated in the present study. The results indicated a significant difference in self-efficacy among 3 groups after intervention (P = 0.001). However, self-care education with smartphone application revealed a significant increase in the mean (SD) of self-efficacy of the patients with thalassemia 68.36(8.45) compared to the lecture method 62.55 (7.3) (P = 0.003) and control 62.09 (6.7) (P = 0.001). There were no significant differences among the self-efficacy scores of the patients in lecture intervention and control groups. Conclusions The results revealed that smartphone application was a suitable educational software to promote self-efficacy in patients with thalassemia. It is recommended to use smartphone application methods to improve the self-efficacy levels of patients with thalassemia.

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