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Purpose: Hypertension is one of the most important risk factors for premature mortality and morbidity in Iran. The objective of the Iranian blood pressure (BP) measurement campaign was to identify individuals with raised blood pressure and providing appropriate care and increase the awareness among the public and policymakers of the importance of tackling hypertension. Methods: The campaign was conducted in two phases. The first (communication) phase started on May 17th (International Hypertension Day). The second phase started on June 8th, 2019, and lasted up to July 7th during which, blood pressures were measured. The target population was Iranians aged ≥ 30 years. Participants voluntarily referred to health houses in rural and health posts and comprehensive health centers in urban areas in the setting of the Primary Health Care network. Additionally, over 13,700 temporary stations were set up in highly visited places in urban areas. Volunteer healthcare staff interviewed the participants, measured their BP, and provided them with lifestyle advice and knowledge of the risks and consequences of high blood pressure. They referred participants to physicians in case their BP was high. Participants immediately received a text message containing the relevant advice based on their measured BP and their past history. Results: Blood pressure was measured for a total of 26,678,394 participants in the campaign. A total of 13,722,148 participants (51.4%) were female. The mean age was 46 ± 14.1 years. Among total participants, 15,012,693 adults (56.3%) with no past history of hypertension had normal BP, 7,959,288 participants had BP in the prehypertension range (29.8%), and finally, 3,706,413 participants (13.9%) had either past medical history of hypertension, used medications, or had high BP measured in the campaign. Conclusion: The campaign was feasible with the objective to increase the awareness among the public and policymakers of the importance of tackling hypertension in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Iranian National Blood Pressure Measurement Campaign (INBPMC) was conducted all over the country to raise awareness in different groups of people regarding the importance of blood pressure and persuading them to manage their blood pressure. The present research aimed at assessing the process and output of this campaign. Methods: For process evaluation, 31 universities/faculties were selected. Experts from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education assessed the documentation of the campaign implementation using the designed checklist. The output was assessed by including 8274 people and through a telephone survey using the designed instructions. Results: The response rate of the telephone interviews was 82.74% (8274 people). It was found that 79% of the selected groups were aware of the INBPMC. Among them, 64% remembered the messages, 99% of the participants who remembered the messages agreed with those messages, and 89% of the participants who agree with the messages went for a measurement of their blood pressure. In the telephone interviews, 30% of the participants stated that they were diagnosed with hypertension, 97% of these participants received the required consultations for subsequent care, and 86% of them went to the health service centers to receive care. The process evaluation of the INBPMC indicated that the universities of medical sciences obtained 97% of the score of the checklist. Conclusion: The INBPMC was successful and accomplished its objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Road traffic crashes are among the leading causes of death and disability in the world, particularly in low and middle-income countries. This study aimed at to conduct a social marketing formative research to inform the development of a campaign to manage driving speed on the intercity roads of Iran. Methods: To carry out the social marketing formative research, a qualitative and quantitative study were conducted. Also, a literature review of the speed management strategies was carried out and an analysis of traffic accident data and speeding violations was performed in selected provinces during 2019 and 2020. Results: Based on the findings of the qualitative study, perceived sense of lack of speed control, poor monitoring system, and law enforcement are the main reasons drivers exceed the speed limit. They mostly suggest using punitive levers and more stringent law enforcement practices for speed management. Literature reviews also confirm that to successfully develop an effective speed management plan a set of measures should be implemented together, including road safety engineering, raising awareness, social marketing strategies, and finally strict law enforcement. The overriding findings of the formative research revealed that to persuade Iranian drivers to respect the speed limit, the messages of the campaign should focus on strict law enforcement in the selected corridors. Conclusion: In the minds of the Iranian audience, strict law enforcement is of paramount importance for a speed management strategy to work; hence it should be taken into consideration when tailoring the campaign messages. From the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that to manage speed on intercity routes in Iran, a social marketing campaign is needed to encourage compliance with speed limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hookah smoking is now a serious health threat especially for adolescents. Implementation of planned interventions can help reduce hookah smoking. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of a campaign Hookah is the Enemy of Health Campaign (HEHC) based on the protection motivation theory to prevent hookah smoking among the youth in Sirjan city, in 2018. This was a pre- and post-intervention study. Participants were 280 male and female youth who were selected randomly through the health centers of Sirjan. The educational campaign was conducted during 3 months and participants were trained through interpersonal, group, organizational and community channels and mass media. Data were collected by filling out a questionnaire (containing 64 questions) by the participant before the intervention and 3 months after. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage), chi-square and Wilcoxon signed-rank test by SPSS20 software. The prevalence of hookah smoking was 44.3% in the target group. There was a significant change in the mean scores of knowledge and perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, response efficiency, self-efficacy, rewards, fear and protection motivation after the HEHC (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in the structure of perceived cost (p > 0.05). Also, the prevalence of hookah smoking among the target group for those who had ever consumed decreased from 8.9 to 4% and for those who used it occasionally decreased from 35 to 19.4%. The HEHC was effective in reducing hookah smoking, raising knowledge and improving the constructs of the protection motivation theory among the youth of Sirjan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Ottoman ulemas and statesmen had been penned some texts which were named “Mecmua” on various topics as combining religious and non-religious writings. Concordantly, the Mecmua which was covering some notes and writings in the religious and non-religious works of Göynüklü Ahmed Efendi, who was a Ottoman finance bureaucrat in the 18th century, is examined in this study. In the study, firstly Berlin and Rado, which have been known copies of mecmua, are introduced, afterwards the ‘mecmua’ is handled by its all aspects as depicting the exoterical and physical specifications of each copy. Records, which were taken by Ahmed Efendi, the author, about the Prut, Mora, Austria and Iran campaigns, in the Mecmua, differentiate it and give prominence among its’s counterparts. These records, besides being a primary source for those times, are unique as well because they involve some data which are not covered by the contemporary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction and Problem of Study: The objective of the present paper is to offer an analysis of the persuasion techniques used in the Iranian government’s media campaign on “Opt-out from Subsidy Plan.” The event took place in the first month of 9313SH (Iranian Calendar). The “Opt-out from Subsidy Plan” turned out to be one of the main government’s media campaigns. The government introduced and launched it to motivate and encourage Iranian to withdraw their name from the list of beneficiaries, i.e., those who were receiving a monthly subsidy from the government. The campaign implemented in almost half month (91th to 39st) in early of year 9313SH and based on the statistic given by officials, only 33 of the people welcome the campaign and register their names to withdraw from the list of those who are receiving the monthly subsidy. The organizers of such campaign tried to encourage and motivate people to participate in the campaign. The role of media and the contents, however, was one of the main reasons to contribute to its failure as there was evidence that shows neither media fully supported and participated in the campaign, nor the organizer used and implemented as much effective media and persuasion techniques on the content as expected. Had it been provided to attract people to follow the campaign objectives, the results may have been different. As such, the main question of this study was to address the role of media (in terms of direction) in the “Opt-out from subsidy plan” campaign and also to offer an analysis of the most persuasion techniques used by the organizer (government) so to attract as many people to participate in this campaign as possible. The results of this study will help the organizer, i.e., the Iranian government, to do a better job in designing and creating campaign messages, that is using more persuasive techniques as well as assigning more efficient communicator in its future campaigns. Theoretical Review Here, we used persuasion theory and persuasion techniques as the principal and conceptual framework. Persuasion Theory is a theory that deals with the elements of communication and their role in shaping and re-shaping the attitudes and behaviors of receivers. In this perspective, persuasive messages are thus able to activate an attitude change that can modify behaviors of the public in general. In communication discipline and to justify the persuasion elements, there are communication models which deal and elaborating the meaning, concept, and function of each element and the way they interact in each situation9. To be more specific, all the elements of the communication process including Source, Communicator, Context, Message, Medium, Noise, and feedback are involved and playing a role in shaping and re-shaping public attitude. Each of these elements along with persuasive techniques can increase or decrease the efficiency of the media content. Also worthy of highlighting that, techniques like “fear,” “Authority,” “Pinpointing the enemy,” “Name calling,” “Glittering generalities,” “commitment and consistency,” “Social proof” etc. are among the most persuasive techniques used in almost all types of campaign. Research Method: The method of study was qualitative (Them analysis) and quantitative content analysis. Quantitative content analysis is a popular method among communication researchers who are investigating media contents. Krippendorff (9191) defined content analysis as a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context . In this study, the researcher also approached the qualitative content analysis named “theme analysis.” Theme analyzing as a qualitative technique is defined as a method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns3. Altogether, we chose some 29 programs/news from one TV channels (TV9) and three mainstream dailies named “Kaihan,” “Iran” and “Etemad” to constitute the unit of analysis of the study. We selected some 911 programs/news randomly as samples on which we performed data collection and data analysis. Based on the objectives of the study, the research instrument (Coding protocol) was developed by the researcher. The research instrument was tested - retested for reliability using Scott's pi (range between 1 - 9). All cases and after a few amendments, the result of Scott’s pi was 17.0 and above. For the validity of the research instrument, the researcher follows the content validity where more than five experts in the area of media and communication approved the codes and structure of the research protocol to achieved the research objectives and measuring the research questions. Findings and Discussion: The result of the study shows that there was no consistency among media content toward this campaign overall. While 91793 of the content in TV9 and .0703 of the content of “Iran” newspaper was positive toward the campaign, 02703 of the content in “Keihan” was negative, and also 01.3% of the content in “Etemad” newspaper was neutral. The result of the Chi-Square test (X = 911.1, P= 1710) shows that there is a significant difference between the media and their direction toward this campaign. In terms of the direction toward organizer of the campaign (Communicator), also media appear to be more neutral rather than be supportive. In overall, 12733 of the content toward the government was neutral, 92733 were negative, and only 9723 were positive. Also, the statistic test was conducted, and the results show there were significant differences between media and their direction toward the organizer of the campaign (X = . 7., P= 1719). Also from the qualitative content analysis, some major negative “themes” were identified which could justify the failure of the whole Campaign. For Example, “Kaihan” and “Etemad” have had some negative publicity regarding the “Organizer” which at the end resulted in disrespectful between the people and organizer. While it was expected most persuasion techniques such as “Commitment and consistency,” “Social proof,” “Scarcity” and “Authority” appeared in the media content, the “fear” technique appeared to be mainly used especially at the early stages of the campaign. The most frequent used message carrying the element of “Fear” was “the possibility of a penalty for those who are not eligible to receive the monthly subsidy from the Government.” Even though from the middle of the campaign the organizer’s language has changed, and they tried to use more soft messages such as “denying the possibility of a penalty for recipients of the monthly subsidy” in approaching the people. Still, there was no confident “position” on what the government is going to do. In terms of using persuasive techniques, the result of the study shows that the capacity of these techniques has not been properly used. In addition to using inappropriate persuasive techniques, some messages have been produced and published against the principals of persuasion theories. The techniques like “Scarcity” or "Social proof” were used inappropriately where could not lead the organizer to the target objectives. Also, there was no certain standards or benchmark from the government on whom should register their name to be removed from the list of “subsidy list” and whom should remain on the list. On this basis, it can be highlighted that public perception of the whole plan was floating between force and persuasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iranian women have never represented more than 5.9% of sitting parliamentarians in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This compares poorly with relevant regional and global averages. In the lead up to the 2016 parliamentary elections, the women’s movement took action to address the low representation of women in the legislature by launching the ‘Campaign to Change the Male Face of Parliament’. The Campaign did not reach its goal of achieving 50 seats for women in the 2016–2020 Parliament. It was also subject to some criticism for effectively (or apparently) legitimising what many women view as a broken form of government unable to promote and protect women’s rights in any meaningful sense. However, the Campaign was an important exercise in democracy and had significant higher-order impacts on voter behaviour and women’s capacities. Through personal communication with three Campaign activists, this profile provides an authoritative account of the Campaign experience and its impact and significance for the future of women’s empowerment in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: New treatment and vaccination strategies provide the opportunity for eliminating viral hepatitis. Lack of adequate knowledge seems to be a barrier against hepatitis elimination due to the emergence of newly infected cases. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of Iranian (bio)medical students regarding hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections and to determine the effect of hepatitis public awareness campaign(PAC),held by the students, on their knowledge level. Methods: This prospective study was conducted during PAC by Iran Hepatitis Network for World Hepatitis Day in 2016. The PAC had 2 major parts: 1) training of the registered (bio)medical students in a workshop; and 2) sending the trained students to Tehran metro stations to promote public hepatitis awareness on July 26 - 28, 2016. Hepatitis knowledge of the students was evaluated by a validated questionnaire before the workshop, after the workshop, and after the end of PAC. Results: A total of 91 undergraduate students participated in the workshop, PAC, and the survey. The mean total knowledge scores of the students before and after the workshop were 56.2±18.0 and 75.8±17.9, respectively. Moreover, the scores further increased to 96.6±6.1 after the end of the campaign (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The results demonstrated that knowledge regarding HBV and HCV infections is not sufficient in the study population. Therefore, we suggest using social activities and awareness campaigns to increase awareness among (bio)medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has been estimated that 60,000 Iranians have been infected with HIV/AIDS and only 36% of them are aware of their status. This study aimed to design, implement and evaluate a social marketing campaign to promote HIV testing in Boyer-Ahmad County, Kohgiluyeh, and Boyer-Ahmad Province, southwest of Iran., Materials and Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest without a control group, developed based on a social marketing assessment and response tool. To design the intervention formative research was conducted, comprised of four focus group discussion sessions with 42 participants of the target community along with seven in-depth semi-structured personal interviews with health care providers involved in the HIV/AIDS Program. Data analysis was done manually using content analysis and the main content was formulated for the campaign. Afterward, the slogan and messages of the campaign were developed. The campaign's materials including banners, posters, pamphlets, referral forms, and short messages were designed, pretested, and revised. Ultimately, the campaign was conducted for one month in October 2019. To determine the effectiveness of the campaign, the rate of referrals to the Center for Behavioral Health Counseling Services (CBHCS), for three months before and after the campaign, was compared., Results: Qualitative findings identified that the majority of the interviewees mentioned that the main reasons for the low rate of referrals to get tested for HIV were lack of awareness and information about HIV/AIDS and its diagnosis as well as the free and confidential tests available from the CBHCS. Moreover, the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS was another important reason for low referrals for testing. The rate of referrals for HIV testing in the three months leading up to the campaign was 18, 32, and 23 people, and three months after the campaign was 64, 81, and 44 individuals; respectively. The results of the multivariate analysis demonstrated that the campaign had increased the rates of referrals for HIV testing through its significant influence on females, and individuals with academic degrees., Conclusion: It can be concluded that the social marketing campaign was successful in persuading people to get tested for HIV., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Problem: The steep increase and inappropriateness of caesarean birth represent a healthcare problem in Iran., Aim: The purpose of study was to evaluate the effect of a campaign based on social marketing to promote normal childbirth., Method: The study was designed as a prospective case control study. The social marketing campaign was implemented from March 2016 to January 2017. A demographic data questionnaire, obstetrical history questionnaire, maternal knowledge assessment questionnaire, and maternal health belief questionnaire comprised the instruments for this study. Only women planning a caesarean birth without any medical indications for the caesarean were enrolled in the study as a case. Those who met the same inclusion criteria and did not want to participate in the campaign were assigned to the control group., Findings: In total, 350 first-time pregnant women who composed the campaign group (n=194) and control group (n=156) completed the study. The mean baseline level of knowledge and Health Belief Model component score did not differ between the two groups at baseline. However, after the campaign, knowledge scores, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, and cues to action scores differed significantly between the campaign and control groups. The follow-up of all participants in both groups showed that 35.6% (n=69) of participants in the campaign group chose natural birth as their birth method, whereas only 13.5% (n=21) in the control group delivered their newborn vaginally., Conclusion: The B Butterfly social marketing campaign successfully targeted first-time pregnant women who chose to have unnecessary elective cesarean births., (Copyright © 2018 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)