BackgroundQuality of life in patients affected with chronic diseases has developed into a therapeutic objective as the best tool to evaluate response to treatment and medical care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate quality of life and its related factors in tuberculosis patients receiving directly observed treatment short-course in Iran.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional research with a descriptive-analytic design. Sample size included 71 patients affected with tuberculosis based on census method; so that, at the time of the study, all the tuberculosis patients were recruited in this research. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire comprised of two parts including demographic characteristics information and standard 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). The data were also analyzed using SPSS Statistics along with descriptive and analytic statistics and independent t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Chi-square test.ResultsThe lowest mean score was 63.58 ± 10.16 and 62.82 ± 15.2 related to limited physical activity following mental problems and social functioning, respectively. Furthermore, the findings of the independent t-test demonstrated that the mean scores of quality of life among men and women, those with pulmonic and non-pulmonic tuberculosis, patient's place of residence and the stage of treatment were statistically and significantly different.ConclusionAccording to the above results, tuberculosis and its treatment have impact on the social function, mental, and emotional aspects of the quality of life of patients, Attention to and monitoring of the quality of life as a follow up of the treatment and care intervention in these patients is necessary.

Clostridium difficile is recognized as a major cause of nosocomial acquired antibiotic-associated diarrhea and pseudomembranous colitis. It is a significant financial burden on modern healthcare resources. This study aimed to assess the molecular characterization of C. difficile strains isolated from children under 5 years old suffered from nosocomial diarrhea. One hundred diarrheic and 130 non-diarrheic fecal samples were collected from pediatrics less than 5 years old. Samples were cultured and C. difficile isolates were subjected to the PCR technique to study the distribution of ribotypes of C. difficile using P3 and P5 primers. Fifty-two out of 100 samples (52 %) were positive for C. difficile. The prevalence of bacterium in healthy children was 4.61 %. Total prevalence of C. difficile in diarrheic girls and boys were 48.9 and 54.7 %, respectively. Thirteen to twenty-four month age children had the highest prevalence of C. difficile. The most commonly detected ribotypes in the C. difficile isolates of Iranian pediatrics were RT027 (11.52 %), R1 (9.61 %) and R13 (7.68 %). The ribotypes of all of the six bacterial isolates of healthy children was not diagnosed. According to the presence of C. difficile and R27 ribotype, a continued genotype surveillance of this bacterium is necessary to monitor changes in the prevalence of certain strains and to identify the emergence of new strains that could affect future vaccine strategies.

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In December 2019, cases of pneumonia with an unknown pathogen were reporting in Wuhan city, China. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognized it as a pandemic, on March 11, 2020. The most frequent site of involvement is the respiratory system. The most common symptoms include cough, fatigue and fever. In some cases, neurological, respiratory and gastrointestinal complications can lead to death. Inflammatory cytokines can play a major role in pathogen damage. Due to the pandemic of COVID-19 and its severe complications, it is critical to identify the high-risk groups. Since this disease has a rapid transmission, following the instructions announced by the WHO, prevention is vital, especially in people with risk factors for disease complications and mortality. According to the latest reports by CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), older age and having some medical conditions such as smoking, obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2 ), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, cancer, solid organ transplant, type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic renal failure, and sickle cell anemia in younger adults are known disease severity risk factor.

Background: From the past and till now, infectious intestinal parasites have been widely distributed across the world. Parasitic diseases are a major health-economic concern in developing countries. The high prevalence of parasitic infections is mostly related to issues such as poor personal hygiene, unhealthy water supplies, and lack of health education. Due to geographic location and diverse climate conditions, Iran has a variety of human and animal parasites. Objectives: In this study, the prevalence of intestinal parasites was reported in the samples collected from the Central Laboratory of Borujen, Iran. Methods: The sampling method was a survey sampling from all individuals referred to the Central Laboratory of Borujen. All of the stool specimens were prepared through a direct method (phylogenetic serum) and examined by light microscopy. Results: Among positive cases, 42 (53.8%) were male and 36 (46.2%) were female, thus there was no significant correlation between the prevalence of infection and sex. The highest level of contamination was for Giardia lamblia to the extent of 75 cases (96.1%), two cases of Enterobius vermicularis (2.6%) and one case of Blastocystis hominis (1.3%). Out of the total number of positive cases, 76 cases (97.4%) infected with protozoa and 2 cases (2.6%) with helminths. Conclusions: The findings of this study showed that due to the good level of hygiene in addition to cold and dry weather of Borujen, the frequency of intestinal parasites in this city has been low. However, similar to other parts of the country, the most prevalence of contamination was related to young ages and Giardia.

Introduction: One of the most common nosocomial infections is urinary tract infection (UTI) which more commonly occurs in patients with urethral catheter. Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare the incidence rate of catheter-associated bacteriuria (CRB) and UTI between sheathed designed catheters versus other methods of urinary drainage. Patients and Methods: In this randomized double-blind controlled trial, 150 male patients, who needed urethral catheter, were randomly assigned into three groups; condom bag, designed sheath catheter and traditional Foley catheter. The midstream urine samples were sent to laboratory to evaluate bacteriuria immediately after catheter insertion, upon catheter removal and after two weeks consequently. Results: The mean age of patients was 51.28 ± 14.12 years. The frequency of bacteriuria in patients was 19 (38%), 10 (20%) and 10 (20%) in the traditional catheter, condom bag and sheathed designed catheter, respectively, which was strongly significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: The frequency of bacteriuria in the patients with designed sheathed catheter was significantly less than the traditional catheter. Therefore, using the designed catheter in short-term may be safer in the patients. Trial registration: The trial was registered in the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (identifier: TCTR20200703002; http://www.clinicaltrials.in.th/index.php?tp=regtrials & menu=trialsear ch & smenu=fulltext & task=search & task2=view1& id=6443).

According to the findings of the present study, in short-term catheterization, replacing sterile urine bag was more effective in decreasing bacteriuria and urinary tract infections (UTIs) as compared with the conventional method of urinary catheterization.