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: Although they are not life threatening, dental caries and periodontal disease are the most predominant and widely spread oral diseases throughout the world. Another most common dental problem seen in children is dental trauma. The aims of the study included the investigation of the prevalence and severity of dental caries, gingivitis and dental plaque in relation to gender, furthermore, the prevalence and severity of the traumatized anterior teeth were assessed. Materials and Methods: This oral health survey was conducted among primary school children aged 9 years old in Al-Diwaniyah city in Iraq. The total sample composed of 600 child (320 males and 280 females) selected randomly from different school in Al-Diwaniyah city. Dia
... 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, mini
... 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
... Show MoreThe current study aimed at (identifying the impact of a proposed strategy based on the realistic mathematics theory in the mathematical interrelation among the third intermediate grade students), two samples from the third intermediate grade were tested in a school affiliated to Rusafa I General education Directorate in Baghdad for the academic year (2022-2021)the experimental group will study according to the proposed strategy and it consisted of (30) female students , the control group will study through the traditional method and the number of its students is (30), thus the study sample consisted of (60) female students, the two groups were equalized in the variables (age in months, intelligence, prior knowledge) and to achieve the study
... Show MoreAbstract
This research aims to evaluate the application of the inspectors general of global indicators offices according to the axles (leadership, strategy and planning, employees, partners and resources, process management) and through the assumption main research which states that (there is an application for global indicators to evaluate performance in the offices of the ministries under study) which are subdivided into five sub-hypotheses according to the classification and division of the five axes of the checklist.
The researchers have taken refuge in the process of assessing the performance of the check list which included global i
... Show MoreThis study evaluated the structural changes of enamel treated by the Regenerate system and carbon dioxide (CO2) laser against acid challenge. Thirty human enamel slabs were prepared and assigned into three groups: Group I: untreated (control); Group II: treated with the Regenerate system; and Group III exposed to CO2 laser. All specimens were subjected to an acid challenge (pH 4.5–7.0) for 14 days. Specimens were evaluated and compared at 120 points using five Raman microspectroscopic peaks; the phosphate vibrations ν1, ν2, ν3, and ν4 at 960, 433, 1029, and 579 cm−1, respectively, and the carbonate at 1070 cm−1, followed by Vickers microhardness test. The ratio of carbonate to phosphate was correlated to the equivalent mic
... Show MoreThis paper presents a hybrid approach for solving null values problem; it hybridizes rough set theory with intelligent swarm algorithm. The proposed approach is a supervised learning model. A large set of complete data called learning data is used to find the decision rule sets that then have been used in solving the incomplete data problem. The intelligent swarm algorithm is used for feature selection which represents bees algorithm as heuristic search algorithm combined with rough set theory as evaluation function. Also another feature selection algorithm called ID3 is presented, it works as statistical algorithm instead of intelligent algorithm. A comparison between those two approaches is made in their performance for null values estima
... Show MoreThis paper is concerned with introducing and studying the o-space by using out degree system (resp. i-space by using in degree system) which are the core concept in this paper. In addition, the m-lower approximations, the m-upper approximations and ospace and i-space. Furthermore, we introduce near supraopen (near supraclosed) d. g.'s. Finally, the supra-lower approximation, supraupper approximation, supra-accuracy are defined and some of its properties are investigated.