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Nurses are the largest group and an important part of the providers in the health care systems that who a key role in hospitals. Any defect and deficiency in their work can result in irreversible outcomes. This study aimed to determine the effect of supervisors' support and mediating factors on the job performance (JOBPER) of 400 nurses working in the teaching hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the supervisor's support had a significant negative effect on work-family conflict (t = -2.57) and a positive effect on organizational commitment (t = 4.03); Work-family conflict had a significant positive effect on job stress (t = 11.24) and a negative effect on organizational commitment (t = -3.35) and JOBPER (t = -2.29). Family-work conflict had a positive effect on job stress (t = 4.48) and a negative effect on organizational commitment (t = -2.54). Finally, job stress had a negative effect (t = -3.30), and organizational commitment showed a positive effect (t = 5.96) on the studied nurses' JOBPER. According to the results, supervisor's support could influence JOBPER through reducing work-family conflict and increasing organizational commitment. Therefore, to improve the nurses' JOBPER in the hospitals, some strategies are recommended.

In this paper, a new generalization of Alpha-Skew-Normal distribution is considered. Some properties of this distribution, which is denoted by GAS N(α, λ), including moments, maximum likelihood estimation of parameters and some other properties are studied. Finally, using a real data set, we show that our new distribution is the best fitted distribution for the used data among Normal, Skew Normal, Alpha-Skew-Normal and Skew-Bimodal-Normal distributions.

ABSTARCTObjectives: This study aimed to review the effects of perceived organizational justice and its components on organizational commitment of administrative and financial employees of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences general hospitals in 2012. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study conducted in 2012. The population in study was all administrative and financial staff of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences general hospitals. A sample size of 120 staff was selected using stratified sampling proportional to size and simple random sampling methods. The required data were gathered using two questionnaires: The modified Persian version of the organizational justice questionnaire developed by Niehoff and Moorman and the Persian version of the organizational commitment questionnaire developed by Allen and Meyer. Also, respondents were asked about their demographic profiles. The response rate was 82%. The collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 16.0 (SPSS) through some statistical tests such as Independent t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation coefficient and Multiple Linear Regression (Stepwise method). P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean score of perceived organizational justice and organizational commitment were 72.80 and 75.93, respectively. The results showed that affective and normative commitment, as well as total organizational commitment had significant positive correlations with total organizational justice and its three components, that is, procedural, distributive, and interactional justice (respectively, r = 0.544, r = 0.476, r = 0.463, r = 0.509, and P < 0.001). However, continuance commitment had only a significant positive correlation with procedural justice (r = 0.206, P = 0.042). Stepwise multiple regression analysis also showed that only procedural and interactional justice had statistically significant relationships with total organizational commitment (B = 0.511, B = 0.599, and P < 0.05). Conclusion: Improving organizational justice can continuously increase employees' commitment. Therefore, hospital administrators should pay more attention to implement and enhance organizational justice and its components especially procedural and interactional justice in the organization, provide opportunities for supervisors to be trained in behaving better towards employees (interactional justice), and develop a fair system for employees' performance evaluation and their promotions (procedural justice), as well as the provision of rewards (distributive justice) based on related standards.

Childbirth is a great moment in a woman's life and is inevitably influenced by emotional, social, and psychological stress. This study aimed to assess the anxiety and pain level of nulliparous women giving birth using physiological methods (without doula support) during labor and those women supported by a doula at Towhid Hospital of Jam, Bushehr, Iran in 2015. In this interventional study, 150 women were randomly assigned to either an intervention (with doula support) or a control group (with no doula support). The intrapartum, postpartum, and hidden anxiety levels were measured using Spielberger standard questionnaire used for assessing anxiety. The labor pain rate was evaluated using McGill questionnaire. Results showed that the average rate of obvious anxiety during labor was 57.76 ± 9.57 in physiological delivery (without doula) and 48.04 ± 9.61 in doula-supported delivery. The difference between mean scores of obvious anxiety during labor was significant. The mean anxiety of the control group (who did not receive doula support) was higher (P = .000). Also, the difference between the mean labor pain scores of the 2 groups was statistically significant. The results of the study showed that doula's presence has positive significant effects on labor pain and anxiety reduction; also, doula-supported mothers reported considerably lower pain and anxiety compared with those experiencing physiological delivery (without doula). Thus, the increased use of doula in hospitals all over the country is recommended.

Service quality is the most important factor in the success of health care organizations; because of their vital and important services, even very small errors can be followed by great and irreparable harm and damage. This study aimed to assess the quality of services provided in the teaching hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2015. This is an applied, cross-sectional, and descriptive-analytical study conducted in 2015 in the teaching hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. A sample of 290 inpatients with at least 2 days of admission to hospital was selected using stratified sampling proportional to size and simple random sampling methods. The results showed that there were significant negative gaps in all dimensions (P > .001), and the highest and lowest means and SD of negative gaps were related to empathy (-1.35 ± 1.4) and assurance (-0.52 ± 0.95). Moreover, the results showed that there was a significant negative correlation between the patients' age and the total mean of the patients' expectations. According to the results, the studied hospitals had not been able to meet the expectations of their patients in any of the service quality dimensions. Therefore, to improve the service quality dimensions, the authors recommend holding training courses on how to interact with patients and meet their needs, providing adequate and proper information about the diseases and their treatment for the patients, having adequate medical staff, and so on.

This cross-sectional and descriptive-analytic study aimed to estimate the demands for the use of dental services by Shirazi inhabitants in Iran from June 2013 to October 2013. Six hundred eighty subjects older than 18 years were selected from among the people living in Shiraz, using a multistage sampling method. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 and Stata 11.0. The results showed that the factors affecting the number of referrals to the dental services centers and the use of these services included the age groups of 28 to 37 and 38 to 47 years, household expenses per month, and having supplementary health insurance coverage (P < .05). According to the results, in order to improve access to dental services and increase the probability of utilizing such services by people in need, the researchers recommend that the authorities should design and develop basic and supplementary health insurance plans to cover different types of dental services, allocate subsidies to dental health services, and increase the knowledge of all the people in different age groups about adherence to dental health principles and prevention of oral and dental diseases.

Background: Job involvement is a work-related attitude which helps to increase the effectiveness of the organization. On the other hand, individuals corresponding to a specific personality type behave in a certain way and have certain expectations, objectives and needs. Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the level of nurses' job involvement and its association with their personality traits in teaching hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Materials and Methods:This was an applied, cross-sectional and analytical-descriptive study. A sample of 110 nurses was determined using a multi-stage sampling method including cluster sampling, stratified sampling proportional to size, and simple random sampling methods. The required data were collected using two questionnaires that measured nurses' job involvement and their personality traits. Collected data were analyzed using the SPSS16.0 software on the basis of statistical tests including Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS), ANOVA, independent-samples t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression (Stepwise method). A P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results:The results showed that the studied nurses' personality traits and job involvement were moderate. Moreover, the results of the multiple linear regression indicated that the studied nurses' job involvement had significant and positive associations only with achievement orientation (P < 0.001) and being formal and official nurses (P = 0.034). Conclusions: According to the results of the present study and to increase employees' job involvement, hospital administrators should establish an equitable employee performance system and provide appropriate rewards and incentives, adequate career advancement and job promotion opportunities, opportunities for making mistakes and learning from those mistakes for employees and providing a greater job security for contract employees.Keywords: Employee Performance Appraisal; Personality; Nurses; Hospitals, Teaching Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Nurses' job involvement had significant associations with some personality traits and employment status. This finding could prove useful in selecting the right personal for a specific medical or surgical department and also for the employers to elaborate an equitable employee performance system and provide appropriate rewards and incentives, and also adequate career advancement opportunities.