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Cold intolerance has been defined as a set of symptoms including pain, tingling, numbness, chills, stiffness, weakness, swelling or skin color changes on exposure to cold. Cold intolerance may have a profound effect on health-related quality of life. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated primarily the prevalence of cold intolerance and secondly associated factors in the general population of Tabriz. Simple random sampling of individuals aged ≥ 18 was performed from the population covered by Emamieh health center under the supervision of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. A telephone interview was conducted with the participants by the general physician of that center. In participants with a positive response to each of two questions "I am oversensitive to cold" and "I experience pain or discomfort when exposed to cold" a Cold Intolerance Symptom Severity (CISS) questionnaire was filled. We used a cut off value 50 for defining cold intolerance. Of the 353 person who received telephone calls, 322 answered questions. Cold related symptoms and cold intolerance were reported in 144 (44.7%) and 38 (11.1%) persons, respectively. Cold intolerance was significantly more common in females and people with comorbidities. Cold intolerance led to a decrease in quality of job in 27 (8.4%) and a change in job in 6 (1.9%) persons. In conclusion, cold intolerance is a common problem in the general population of Tabriz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & objectives: As private hospitals and institutions increase drastically, the health care market has changed to a comparative market and thus many factors affect the selection of hospital by patients. The aim of this research was to recognize the factors affecting hospital selection decisions (governmental and private) from the patients' viewpoint in Iran. Method: This research is a descriptive-analytical study which has been done cross-sectionally. The Research population was comprised of patients hospitalized at Emam Reza Governmental Hospital and Shams Private Hospital of Tabriz, Iran. A total of 376 samples participated in research who were divided between two hospitals using proportional allocation method. Required data was collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. Data was analyzed using Chi-Square and T-Test statistical tests. Findings: Findings show that some factors including referring to hospital by ambulance, physicians' advice, family income, insurance type, hospital quality, employment of family members in hospitals, cost of services provided at hospital and information given to patients about their disease are the factors affecting the hospital selection decision by patients. Conclusions: Although various factors affect the governmental or private hospital selection, the high percentage of referring to Emam Reza governmental hospital and the pervasive role of physicians' advice in selection of hospital due to exclusiveness of physicians in educational-treatment centers, caused the patients not to practically have any roles in selecting their hospitals and thus the role of other factors in selecting hospital, was less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]