Introduction: Although it is discouraged, community pharmacy customers can obtain oral corticosteroids (OCSs) without prescriptions from some community pharmacies in Iraq. Medication abuse is defined as the use of medication for non-medical reasons. Objectives: The study aimed to determine demographics, beliefs, and perceptions associated with the abuse of oral corticosteroids for non-illness reasons among community pharmacy customers. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in fall 2018 in four provinces in Iraq. Customers of 19 community pharmacies asking for OCSs for themselves without a prescription were administered a paper survey. This study used the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to measure the relationship between the motivational factors and the abuse of OCSs. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationships between the use of OCSs for non-illness and six TRA factors: Normative belief, behavioral belief, evaluation of the behavior, motivation to comply, subjective norms and attitude toward behavior. Results: The study enrolled 141 participants (98 women and 43 men) taking asking for OCSs without prescription. Dexamethasone was the most commonly used OCSs (59.6%). Friends were the primary recommenders for corticosteroids abuse (28.4%). The main reasons for using OCSs were to increase appetite and gain weight (53.9 %). Approximately one-third (36.2 %) of the participants gained weight after using OCSs. The regression analysis of the TRA variables showed two factors were significantly related to the abuse of OCSs. Age had a significant inverse relationship with the abuse of OCSs and the "good appearance" belief had a significant positive association with OCS abuse. Conclusion: Some Iraqi community pharmacy customers use non-prescribed oral corticosteroids to increase appetite and gain weight. Improve body appearance represents the dominant incentive that urges people to use OCSs without prescription. Health officials and healthcare practitioners need to promote people's awareness about the risks of misusing OCSs through education programs and advertisements in public health settings, media, and social media. Article Type: Original Research
Background: Water-pipe can be defined as a single or multi stemmed device that used to vaporize and smoke flavored tobacco whose smoke is passed via water vase before inhalation. Water-pipe smokers are at risk of exposure to many toxic chemicals that are not filtered by water, as well as risk of infectious diseases when the mouth piece of the water-pipe is shared. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of water pipe on the oral health. Materials and Methods: Sixty persons were included in this study aged between 22 and 23 years. Forty persons were coffee shop workers for at least five years, half of them were water-pipe smokers (active smokers) and the other weren’t smokers (passive smoker), the last group was the co
... Show MoreBackground: Orofacial cleft is the most common craniofacial birth defect and the fourth most common congenital malformation in humans that have an effect on oral health in addition to nutrient intake affected in those children. This research aims to investigate gingival condition, dental caries experience and nutritional status among children with orofacial cleft and compare them with normal children. Materials and methods: The study group included 36 children with an age ranged (4-9) years of orofacial cleft. The control group included 37 children matched the control group in age and gender. Gingival condition measured by Gingival Index (Löe and Silness, 1963), while dental caries status was measured by (D1-4MFs/d1-4mfs) index according
... Show MoreSystematic Reviews in Pharmacy is a monthly Peer-review open access Journal,different scientists involved in Pharmaceutical research and development
The research aimed to identify the effectiveness of instructional design according to whole brain theory of Herman in the achievement of chemistry at the fifth scientific students at a secondary school of the General Directorate for Educational in Diyala / Baladruz in Iraq. The research sample Consisted of (57 student, (29) students as experimental group studied according to instructional design strategies for whole brain theory of Herrmann and (28) a student as a control group studied by the usual way for two semesters, a prepared achievement test as article and objective type of multiple choice, the coefficient stability of alpha-Cronbach equation reached (0.86). The research Results showed the presence of a statistically significant d
... Show MoreThe intestinal mucositis define as inflammation and ulceration in the gastrointestinal tract wall and in some case in the oral cavity these cause by treatment with antineoplastic drug like 5-fluorouracil and Irinotecan and other types of chemotherapeutics drugs , 5-Fluorouracil-induced intestinal mucositis (IM) is consider as one of the more common tumor issue .it cause series of undesirables symptoms like severe diarrhea ,abdominal pain , stomach uncomfortable and other. The aim of this current study to see how ellagic acid act to Attenuates 5-FU-Induced Intestinal Mucositis and Diarrhea in Mice . we induced the intestinal mucositis by injected the mice intraperitoneally in 5-fluorouracil about 50mg per kg daily for
... Show MoreBackground: Oral health is a mirror of general health. During pregnancy, oral health is affected by changes in saliva and oral hygiene measures which may lead to more dental caries.
Objective: Assess oral health status in relation to salivary antimicrobial peptides in pregnant women.
Subjects and Method: This cross sectional study was carried out in different primary health care centers in Rusafa sectors/ Baghdad city. The total sample included was 80 women (their age range from 21-30). The study group consisted of 40 pregnant women: half of them were in the first trimester and others were in third trimester, while the control group included 40 non-pregnant married fem
... Show MoreInternational companies are striving to reduce their costs and increase their profits, and these trends have produced many methods and techniques to achieve these goals. these methods is heuristic and the other Optimization.. The research includes an attempt to adapt some of these techniques in the Iraqi companies, and these techniques are to determine the optimal lot size using the algorithms Wagner-Whitin under the theory of constraints. The research adopted the case study methodology to objectively identify the problem of research, namely determining lot size optimal for each of the products of electronic measurement laboratory in Diyala and in light of the bottlenecks in w
... Show MoreThe present research deals with the influencing factors which depends on the way perceptual of the graphic designer which enters in the design logos of the loco European health, where the search include four chapters, the researcher reviewed in the chapter 0ne the methodical frame of the research ,as reviewed in the second chapter the theoretical frame, and the previous studies which included three sections, the first section included the perceptual understandable and types of it, and the second section included the influencing factors in the designer perceptual ways and its division . While the third section included the perceptual in graphic designer through the percepted shapes and the relation with ground and colors for express the i
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the predominant habits and behaviors promoted by American action films frequently streamed on Cinemana website—a specialized platform for streaming films and series as the most followed platform. This platform offers a range of film genres, including the latest releases, free of charge. Using a simple random sampling method, twenty action films were selected for the study. Consequently, the researcher opted for a descriptive-analytical approach, deemed most appropriate for achieving the research objectives, employing content analysis as a tool to scrutinize these films. The findings highlighted that behavioral habits associated with scenes of violence, destruction, sabotage, revenge
... Show MoreGeneral Directorate of Surveying is considered one of the most important sources of maps in Iraq. It produced digital maps for whole Iraq in the last six years. These maps are produced from different data sources with unknown accuracy; therefore, the quality of these maps needs to be assessed. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the positional accuracy of digital maps that produced from General Directorate of Surveying. Two different study areas were selected: AL-Rusafa and AL-Karkh in Baghdad / Iraq with an area of 172.826 and 135.106 square kilometers, respectively. Different statistical analyses were conducted to calculate the elements of positional accuracy assessment (mean µ, root mean square error RMSE, minimum and maxi
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