This is a pioneering study that uses Parasuraman and Zeithaml's model and CFA in a dental setting. This study provides useful insights and guidance for dental service quality assurance.

Background:The healthcare organizations need to develop and implement quality improvement plans for their survival and success. Measuring quality in the healthcare competitive environment is an undeniable necessity for these organizations and will lead to improved patient satisfaction.Objectives:This study aimed to measure the quality of provided services for patients with chronic kidney disease in Kerman in 2014.Patients and Methods:This cross-sectional, descriptive-analytic study was performed from 23 January 2014 to 14 February 2014 in four hemodialysis centers in Kerman. All of the patients on chronic hemodialysis (n = 195) who were referred to these four centers were selected and studied using census method. The required data were collected using the SERVQUAL questionnaire, consisting of two parts: questions related to the patients' demographic characteristics, and 28 items to measure the patients' expectations and perceptions of the five dimensions of service quality, including tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 through some statistical tests, including independent-samples t test, one-way ANOVA, and paired-samples t test.Results:The results showed that the means of patients' expectations were more than their perceptions of the quality of provided services in all dimensions, which indicated that there were gaps in all dimensions. The highest and lowest means of negative gaps were related to empathy (-0.52 ± 0.48) and tangibility (-0.29 ± 0.51). In addition, among the studied patients' demographic characteristics and the five dimensions of service quality, only the difference between the patients' income levels and the gap in assurance were statistically significant (P < 0.001).Conclusions:Overall, the results of the present study showed that the expectations of patients on hemodialysis were more than their perceptions of provided services. The healthcare providers and employees should pay more attention to the patients' opinions and comments and use their feedback to solve the workplace problems and improve the quality of provided services. In addition, training the health staff to meet the patients' emotional needs and expectations is suggested.

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Aims and objectives To determine the prevalence and type of occupational injuries in nurses and their associations with workload, working shift, and nurses’ individual and organisational factors. Background Nurses are vulnerable to occupational injuries due to the nature of their job. Design A cross‐sectional correlational design (based on STROBE Statement) was conducted. Methods This study was conducted among 616 nurses of four public hospitals located in four different provinces in Iran. Data were collected using three questionnaires including an organisational and demographic questionnaire, an occupational injuries checklist and the NASA‐TLX questionnaire (about mental workload). Chi‐square test, one‐way ANOVA and multivariate logistic regression were used in SPSS version 23.0 for statistical analysis. Results Blood and body fluid exposures had the highest prevalence (47.4%) among all injuries. Needlestick injuries showed a significant relation with gender, age, number of shifts in a month and work experience. With increase in mental workload, needlestick injuries increase by 35%. Also, injuries reported by nurses working in rotating shifts were 15%–53% more than nurses working in fixed shifts. Conclusion Working in rotating shifts and work overload was significantly related to all injuries. Decreasing nurses’ mental workload, introducing guidelines and efficient training in shift work schedules can help decrease occupational injuries among nurses. Relevance to clinical practice In order to reduce occupational injuries among nurses, in addition to incorporating advanced management and technology, it is necessary to pay attention to psychosocial, individual and organisational risk factors related to occupational injuries and their frequency in nurses. Also, reducing personnel's mental and occupational pressure should be considered.

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Objective. To examine the changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) in terms of age, gender, and treatment strategy in Iran. Methods and Materials. Forty-nine patients responded to the Iranian version of the 36-item short form (SF-36) questionnaire to evaluate the HRQoL at first and third year after treatment. The paired and independent Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were used for within and between comparisons, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis was used to analyze the predictors of changes at HRQoL. Results. In general, during followup, the mental component summary scale improved, and the physical component summary scale declined. The results of multiple regression showed that the score at the first year post-treatment was the main predictor of HRQoL at follow up. Moreover, after adjusting for other covariates, receiving PTCA and being at older age were related to lower scores at followup, but these were not statistically significant in most cases. Conclusion. The HRQoL significantly changed from one to three years after treatment in patients with CAD. While, the physical health deteriorated during two-year follow up, mental health improved at the same time period. Generally, there were no significant differences at changes of HRQoL in terms of treatment, age, and gender.

Background:The application of the nursing research findings is one of the most important indicators of development in the nursing profession, which leads to providing efficient and effective patient care and improving the quality of nursing care. According the result of some studies, transferring the evidence-based findings to the nurses’ practice and education in the world has been slow and sometimes unsuccessful. This study aimed to investigate the most important barriers to the application of research findings from the nurses’ perspective.Materials and Methods:This cross-sectional study conducted on a sample of 210 nurses in a teaching hospital in Tehran in 2013. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire consisted of two parts, including items about nurses’ demographic characteristics and 30 items to identify the most important barriers to the application of research findings from the studied nurses’ perspective.Results:“The lack of sufficient time for reading the studies,” “the lack of sufficient time to implement the new ideas,” “the lack of adequate facilities to implement the ideas,” “nurses’ little interest in conducting studies,” and “the lack of authority to change the methods and patterns of care” with, respectively, 85%, 84.6%, 83.8%, 83.4%, and 80.5% agreement with the existence of barriers were the most barriers to application of research findings from the studied nurses’ perspective.Conclusion:The lack of time was the most important barrier to the use of research findings from the perspective of studied nurses. Therefore, some effective strategies should be used by hospital managers and health policy makers to overcome this barrier. Some of these strategies can be employing new personnel and hiring skilled and efficient human resources in order to decrease the workload of nurses, organizing the nurses’ work shifts, providing right balance between patients and nurses in the wards, etc.

Discharging against medical advice is to leave the hospital despite the advice of the doctor, which can result in complications and readmissions. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of patients’ discharge against medical advice (DAMA) and their reasons in a public teaching hospital in Tehran, Iran in 2012. This was an applied and cross-sectional study in which all patients (2601 patients) who had been discharged against medical advice from the studied hospital in 2012 were studied. Required data were collected using a data collection form. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 and descriptive and analytical tests including Frequencies and Fisher’s Exact Test. The most and least common reasons for DAMA were, respectively, feeling complete recovery by patients (45.4%) and financial problems (1.3%). The results showed that there were significant differences between DAMA prevalence and patients’ sex and age (P<0.001). The prevalence of DAMA in the studied hospital was high and according to the existence of social work units in every hospital, it is recommended that patients’ consultation with the hospital social workers should be considered as an obligatory stage of the discharge against medical advice process in order to inform patients about its complications and adverse consequences.