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Background and Aim: Food handlers have an important role in food contamination. This study determined validity and reliability of the world health organization questionnaires about five essential principles of food safety in food handlers for assessment of their knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP). Materials and Methods: For standardization, these steps were performed: 1) Getting permission of the world health organization 2) Translating the questionnaire twice in Persian and again in English 3) using expert ideas and determination of inter rated agreement (IRA), relevancy and clarity of each question and the tool as a whole 4) measuring Reliability with Cronbach's alpha, and repeatability was measured with intra-cluster correlation through repeated test-piloting after 1 month. Results: Using a conservative approach, the IRA for the overall relevancy and clarity of the tools were 81%, 90% and 90%, and 95%, 95%, 97.5% respectively. The overall Cronbach's alpha for KAP were 70%, 73%, 99% respectively and the intra-cluster correlation (ICC) that was obtained through comparing the overall score of the questionnaire in the pre-test and test phase were 0.69%, 0.75%, 0.99% respectively. Conclusion: These new tools have good reliability and validity and they have very important, simple and clear principles of food safety so researchers, managers and food handlers can use them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Lack of exercise is inconsistent with healthy lifestyle. In recent years, it has increased in different age groups, particularly in children and adolescents. To implement any health program, we should have a deep understanding of the health program. This study aimed to recognize characteristics of a school-based program for promoting physical activity in adolescents from the perspective of experts and health authorities, as well as student and parent's overviews. Also, implementation and integration of this program was investigated by faculty members and connoisseurs' perspectives Methods: The qualitative study was performed through in-depth interviews and Focus group discussion (FGD) on faculty members, experts of different ministries and students and parents. Overall, 24 experts, and 6 faculty members and connoisseurs participated in the study. Also, four FGD were held with students and parents. The findings were examined using content analysis Results: The results were divided in two parts: A) Existing problems and characteristics of a school-based intervention program for promoting physical activity from the perspective of students, parents and experts of different ministry B) implementation and integration of the program by faculty members and connoisseurs' perspectives. Totally, we identified 3 categories and 28 themes for the section A, and 2 categories and 22 themes for the section B. The following three domains were extracted for the section A including management problems, shortage of resources, and approaches of increasing physical activity. Two domains for the section B were barriers to intersectorial coordination and characteristics of a school-based program. The results of the interviews with faculty members and health authorities led to identify a twentieth-stage framework for implementing the program. Conclusion: The results indicated a severe lack of human and financial resources, and a coherent and systematic program to promote physical activity in schools. The identified framework can be used for implementing other health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Aim: Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users. In many cases, pedestrian-vehicle crashes are often the result of their risky road crossing behaviors. So, this qualitative study aimed to explore the reasons for risky road crossing behaviors among young people. Methods & Materials: The current study was designed as a qualitative content analysis. Twelve males and females who had a car-accident were purposefully selected with maximum variation sampling. Data were collected and analyzed by semi-structured individual interviews. Results: Conformity with the masses including “conformity with peers and conformity with the public space of society”, and anomie emerged as the most important social reasons for young pedestrian's risky road crossing behaviors. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, young pedestrian's risky road crossing behaviors are affected by conformity with the masses and peers and as well as anomie so that risky behaviors have been commonplace and inevitable and a part of their lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Social capital refers to the norms and networks that make people to cooperate in social actions for gaining reciprocal advantages. Focusing of its importance on health, the aim of this study was to evaluate social capital in the students of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 180 students of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in the fields of medicine, public health, nursing, laboratory sciences, anesthesia ,and operation roomusing simple random sampling in 2014. Bullen social capital questionnaire was used for data collection. Data analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA, t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: The results showed that among all the social capital issues, the highest average (56.29±20.56) belonged to the“communication with friends and family” and the lowest average (41.56±20.39) to the “participation in the community activities”. Also social capital showed a significant association with the variables such as educational level, educational field, marital status, place of residence and indigenous status (p<0.05). Conclusion: Considering the significant association of the social capital with the educational and demographic variables s, interventions by stakeholders may increase the social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Indeed the development of health promotion programs in the community would result in ineffective solutions if social and cultural backgrounds are not considered. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the level of social health and factors influencing the staff employees of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran. Materials and methods: The study was a descriptive- analytical one in which 257 employees of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran were selected by stratified random sampling. In order to measure the social health of the employees, Keyes social health questionnaire was used. This questionnaire measured five social health components- social cohesion, social prosperity, social acceptance, participation and social adaptation. The data analysis was conducted using Non-parametric correlation (c2) and Kendall's test by SPSS 20 with the significance level of 0.05. Results: Most of the participants (51.7%) had medium social health, and 17.8% had low social health. There was a significant correlation between social health and gender, education and accommodations (p < 0.05); but no significant relationship was found between social health and age, marital and employment status. Conclusion: Health system will have a good performance if the issues and needs of employees are considered in designing and managing it. The results of this study showed the importance of health education and health promotion intervention in the field of social health among staff, especially the staff of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Child abuse is a social problem that affects the lives of children. The purpose of this study was to design a valid and reliable Persian questionnaire to measure the status of child abuse. Materials and Methods: Content validity was measured with search of relevant electronic databanks, preparation of the first draft of the questionnaire and determinant of its relevancy and clarity. Reliability was measured with Cronbach's alpha, and repeatability was measured with intra cluster correlation through test-retest with two weeks interval. Results: The mean of clarity and relevancy of the tool were 80.36% and 92.5%, respectively, and rang of these two measure were 90.14 - 97.2, also. The average of intra cluster correlation (ICC) and Cronbach's alpha were 0.95 and 0.92, respectively. Conclusion: The new tool has acceptable validity and reliability and is suitable for child abuse studies in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Quality of life amongst people living with HIV/AIDS is affected by their experiences such as social isolation, stigmatization and discrimination. Physical, mental and social problems are common throughout their lives. Therefore, studying the quality of life of HIV-infected individuals are shortcomings in various cultural contexts. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in Iran. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used. We used convenience sampling to recruit 300 HIV-infected adults attending the Imam Khomeini Hospital consultation center for clients with risky behaviors in Tehran. To collect the data we employed the World Health Organization Quality of life for HIV Brief version (WHOQOL-HIV BREF). T-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's coefficient and multiple regression were used for analysis. Results: The mean ±SD age of the respondents was 34.3±7.5 years. The majority of them were males (55%) and asymptomatic (51.7%). Among the domains of quality of life, Level of independence had the highest score (13.4±3.1), and environment (12.5±2.8) and psychological (12.5±3.1) domains had the lowest. Younger's, women and employed subjects reported better quality of life for different domains of quality of life (p<0.05). Conclusion: Psychological and environment domains in quality of life were found to be adversely affected by HIV. Accurate and culturally sensitive interventions are suggested to address the patients' psychological and environmental needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]