The results of meta-analysis showed that about one-third of pregnancies in Iran are unwanted and a high percent of them are among women who had used contraceptives. Therefore' it is necessary to adopt more appropriate policies on the following: education, proper pregnancy age, using contraceptive methods, men's role in family planning programs and quality promotion in family planning services.

Background: Informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. Many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. In order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the underlying causes of such payments. This study attempts to explore why, how, and in what ways informal payments occur. Methods: We conducted face-to-face interviews with a purposeful sample of 45 participants, including patients, healthcare providers and officials, in Kerman province in Iran, in 2010. The research participants were asked about the nature of informal payments, the reasons behind both asking and making those payments. We analysed the data using content analysis. Results: We found that people make informal payments for several reasons, namely cultural, qualityrelated and legal. Providers ask for informal payments because of tariffs, structural and moral reasons, and to demonstrate their competence. Informal payments were found to be more prevalent for complex procedures and are usually asked for directly. Conclusion:Informal payments are present in Iran's health system as in other countries. What makes Iran's condition slightly different from other countries is the peculiarity of reasons behind asking informal payments and the disadvantages associated with these kinds of payments. Iran could overcome this dilemma by precise investigation of the reasons to inform appropriate policy formulation. Some policies such as raising salaries, justifying the tariffs and cost-sharing, defining a benefits package of services, and improving accountability and transparency in the health system could be taken by the government to alleviate the problem.

The present study indicated high frequency of defensive medicine behavior in the Southeast Iran. So, it calls policy-makers special attention to improve the status quo.

BackgroundEmotional intelligence is the potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, describe, identify, learn from, manage, understand and explain emotions. Service quality also can be defined as the post-consumption assessment of the services by consumers that are determined by many variables.ObjectivesThis study was aimed to determine the nurses’ emotional intelligence impact on the delivered services quality.Materials and MethodsThis descriptive - applied study was carried out through a cross-sectional method in 2010. The research had 2 populations comprising of patients admitted to three academic hospitals of Yazd and the hospital nurses. Sample size was calculated by sample size formula for unlimited (patients) and limited (nursing staff) populations and obtained with stratified- random method. The data was collected by 4 valid questionnaires.ResultsThe results of study indicated that nurses' emotional intelligence has a direct effect on the hospital services quality. The study also revealed that nurse's job satisfaction and communication skills have an intermediate role in the emotional intelligence and service quality relation.ConclusionsThis paper reports a new determinant of hospital services quality.

Local Burden of Disease Educational Attainment Collaborators* Educational attainment is an important social determinant of maternal, newborn, and child health 1-3. As a tool for promoting gender equity, it has gained increasing traction in popular media, international aid strategies, and global agenda-setting 4-6. The global health agenda is increasingly focused on evidence of precision public health, which illustrates the subnational distribution of disease and illness 7,8 ; however, an agenda focused on future equity must integrate comparable evidence on the distribution of social determinants of health 9-11. Here we expand on the available precision SDG evidence by estimating the subnational distribution of educational attainment, including the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling, across all low-and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017. Previous analyses have focused on geographical disparities in average attainment across Africa or for specific countries, but-to our knowledge-no analysis has examined the subnational proportions of individuals who completed specific levels of education across all low-and middle-income countries 12-14. By geolocating subnational data for more than 184 million person-years across 528 data sources, we precisely identify inequalities across geography as well as within populations.

The paper reports an original application of the SERVQUAL approach to hospital services of a developing country.

It is hoped that our results will facilitate a reformulation of Iran's health policy.

Based on findings and issues discovered in this study, several suggestions can be made, including development, implementation, and evaluation of needs assessment strategies for various vocational posts, promotion of educational courses and PHC-based training, strengthening of relationships and coordination between practical and scientific bodies, application of incentive programs in PHC, and strengthening of system management capacity through use of qualified managers.