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Background: Health maintenance and promotion are the fundamental prerequisites to community development. The best time for establishing healthy lifestyle habits is during adolescence. Objectives: Due to importance of health promotion behaviors in adolescents, this study was conducted to investigate healthpromoting behaviors and its associated factors among high school students in Rasht, Iran. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 424 students during the first semester of the year 2012. We employed the multistage sampling design to recruit from private and public high schools in Rasht, Iran. The data collection instrument was a self-report questionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part of instrument was consisted of demographic questionnaire and the second part was adolescent health promotion scale (AHPS) questionnaire. AHPS questionnaire was consisted of six dimensions (nutrition, social support, health responsibility, life appreciation, physical activity, and stress management) to measure health promoting lifestyles. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 16 software employing ANOVA (analysis of variance) test, t-test, Mann-Whitney, and the Kruskal-Wallis. Results: The score of total Adolescent Health Promotion Scale were 3.58 ± 0.52 (possible range was 1-5). The highest score was in life appreciation dimension (3.99 ± 0.068) and the lowest score was in health responsibility dimension. Moreover, Significant associations were found between the adolescent health promotion Scale with age (P < 0.001), gender (P < 0.003), school grade (P < 0.011), father's educational level (P < 0.045), mother's educational level (P < 0.021), and mother's occupation (P < 0.008). Conclusions: Female and older students are at higher risk of developing unhealthy lifestyle. Consequently, healthcare providers, health instructors, schoolteachers, and families must pay more attention to these students. Moreover, as most of lifelong healthy and unhealthy lifestyle habits are established during adolescence, developing effective health promotion and disease prevention strategies for adolescents seems crucial.

The level of knowledge regarding VAP prevention seems inadequate in the present study. Although having knowledge about the principles of evidence-based care cannot guarantee the implementation of these principles, lack of knowledge may be a potential barrier to adherence to evidence-based guidelines for the prevention of VAP. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Sexual relationship is not limited to a merely biological process; it is an experience that is formed in a joint intrapersonal, interpersonal and cultural context. This study aimed to explore married Iranian women’s interpretation of sexual activity. The researchers conducted this qualitative study on 65 eligible married women aged 16-60 years attending prenatal care, family planning, and gynecology clinics in an educational hospital during 2012-2013. We collected data through 9 focus group discussions. We also used purposive sampling method with maximum variation for selecting study Participants. All interviews were continued until data saturation was achieved. Researchers used a conventional content analysis approach for data analyzing. Four main categories were extracted from the data. The main categories included: “Sex and response to individual’s feelings,” “Sex and intra and interpersonal challenges,” “Sex and informational challenges (the known and unknown),” and “Sex and self-sacrifice (duty-oriented sexual activity).” The participants expressed a dynamic meaning of sexual marital activity that was influenced by many basic emotional, psychological, physical, social, economic, and cultural factors. Most participants placed strong emphasis on the duty-oriented aspect of marital sexual activities, and showed a preference for their husband’s sexual needs and satisfaction.

BackgroundSpinal anesthesia is the method of choice for most elective and emergency Cesarean sections. To increase the duration of anesthesia and improve the quality of analgesia during and after surgery, intrathecal opioids, as adjuvant drugs, are used in combination with local anesthetics.MethodsThis was a double-blind clinical trial performed on 99 patients. Women were divided into 3 groups of fentanyl, sufentanil, and placebo. For fentanyl group, 12.5 mg of bupivacaine and 25 micrograms of fentanyl; for sufentanil group, 12.5 mg of bupivacaine and 2.5 micrograms of sufentanil; and for placebo group, 12.5 mg of bupivacaine and a half mL of normal saline were injected in subarachnoid space. The sensory and motor block, hemodynamic status (mean blood pressure and heart rate), and probable complications were assessed.ResultsThere was no significant difference between the groups in demographic characteristics. Durations of analgesia were, respectively, 314 ± 42.95, 312.5 ± 34.44, and 116.1 ± 42.24 minutes in the fentanyl, sufentanil, and placebo groups (P = 0.0001). Duration of sensory and motor block was higher in fentanyl and sufentanil groups compared with the placebo group. The highest duration of sensory and motor block was noted in sufentanil group (P = 0.0001). No significant difference was found between the groups in the hemodynamic parameters (P > 0.05). The frequency of itching in the fentanyl group was higher than sufentanil and placebo groups (P = 0.003). Also, shivering was higher in the placebo group compared with other groups (P = 0.036).ConclusionsAccording to the results, adding 25 microgram fentanyl or 2.5 microgram sufentanil to intrathecal bupivacaine increased the duration of analgesia and provided hemodynamic stability with no major complication. As administering intrathecal fentanyl had a similar duration of analgesia like sufentanil with faster return of motor block and ambulation, it seems that it is a preferred additive for Cesarean section surgery.