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BACKGROUND: Health literacy plays an important role in adopting preventive behaviors. Considering the relatively high prevalence of breast cancer in women, this study aimed to assess the association between health literacy and adopting the preventive behavior of breast cancer in Iran. METHODS: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study, in which 375 female students at Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin in the academic year of 2018–2019 were selected through a stratified random sampling method. Demographic and background questionnaire, the standard questionnaire of Health Literacy for Iranian Adults in addition to another questionnaire for measuring breast cancer preventive behaviors, were used for collecting data. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22 using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. RESULTS: The mean of the breast cancer preventive behaviors and health literacy were 8.92 ± 1.82 out of 16 and 70.80 ± 12.49 out of 100. Regression results showed that there was a statistically significant association between the adoption of breast cancer preventive behaviors and physical activity ( P < 0.001) and health literacy ( P < 0.018). Accordingly, the chance for adopting the preventive behaviors in good level among students with rare and without physical activity was 0.105 and 0.100 times, respectively, more than students who had been doing physical activity on a daily basis. Moreover, the same chance among students with adequate and very adequate health literacy was 1.802 and 2.169 times more than students with inadequate health literacy. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that students with lower levels of health literacy and less physical activity had shown less tendency to adopt preventive behaviors of breast cancer. Therefore, special attention should be paid to health literacy (HL), particularly physical activity, application of health information, and assessment in students when designing educational programs to prevent breast cancer.

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Background: Chronic exposure to noise in workplaces is one of the most important physical agents that affects workers’ health and causes social and individual problems. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between noise annoyance and blood pressure (BP) of workers of an automotive industry. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 250 workers were randomly selected. The subjects were classified in two groups based on the exposure to sound pressure levels lower and higher than 85 dB (106 and 144 workers, respectively). In this study, BP was measured using an ALPK2 mercury pressure gauge. To measure annoyance levels, an annoyance questionnaire containing a numerical question numbered 0–11 was used. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 36.19 (±3.75) years. The results showed that the systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of the subjects exposed to the sound pressure levels higher than 85 dB were significantly higher than those exposed to a sound pressure level lower than 85 dB ( P < 0.01). Also, the results of the multivariate regression showed a significant relationship between the annoyance and DBP and SBP caused by chronic exposure to noise and sound pressure levels ( P < 0.01). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the annoyance caused by exposure to chronic noise in the workplace causes stress in the workers and, in the long term, could increase the risk of high SBP and DBP.

Summary Introduction Considering the high prevalence of sexual dysfunction among women and the role of quality of sexual life in women’s life and health, in addition to the important role of sexual function evaluation in measuring quality of life, this study aimed to determine the effect of female sexual function on the quality of sexual life. Material and methods This research was a descriptive and cross-sectional. The population of this study was 420 women from Qazvin in 2020, who were selected by multi-stage sampling. The data collection tool was a demographic questionnaire and Persian version of the Female Sexual Function Assessment questionnaire (FSFI) and Sexual Quality of Life Questionnaire (SQOL-F). Data were analyzed using SPSS 23, and descriptive statistics and logistic regression were applied. Results The mean (SD) of sexual function score was 21.56 (4.83) out of 36, therefore, it was at an unfavorable level. Also, the mean (SD) score of sexual quality of life 59.71 (19.21) was out of 108 (moderate). The results of logistic regression test showed that the variables of sexual function, age and level of education of women were the factors affecting the quality of women’s sexual life (P < 0.05). Conclusions Young women with lower sexual function, and lower level of education had lower quality of sexual life. Hence, it is necessary to pay more attention to these women in designing educational programs for improving the quality of their sexual life.

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