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
Segmented regression consists of several sections separated by different points of membership, showing the heterogeneity arising from the process of separating the segments within the research sample. This research is concerned with estimating the location of the change point between segments and estimating model parameters, and proposing a robust estimation method and compare it with some other methods that used in the segmented regression. One of the traditional methods (Muggeo method) has been used to find the maximum likelihood estimator in an iterative approach for the model and the change point as well. Moreover, a robust estimation method (IRW method) has used which depends on the use of the robust M-estimator technique in
... Show MoreNanoencapsulation, employing safe materials, holds substantial promise for enhancing bioactive compounds’ delivery, stability, and bioactivity. In this study, we present an innovative and safe methodology for augmenting the incorporation of the anticancer agent, curcumin, thereby inducing apoptosis by downregulating miR20a and miR21 expression. Our established methodology introduces three pivotal elements that, to our knowledge, have not undergone formal validation: (1) Novel formulation: We introduce a unique formula for curcumin incorporation. (2) Biocompatibility and biodegradability: our formulation exclusively consists of biocompatible and biodegradable constituents, ensuring t
This work studies the role of serum apelin-36 and Glutathione S-transferases (GST) activity in association with the hormonal, metabolic profiles and their link to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy and patients' ladies with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A total of fifty-four (PCOS) patients and thirty-one healthy woman as a control have been studied. The PCOS patients were subdivided on the basis of body-mass-index (BMI), into 2-subgroups (the first group was obese-PCOS with BMI ≥ 30 and the second group was non-obese PCOS MBI<30). Fasting-insulin-levels and Lipid-profile, Homeostatic-model assessment-of-insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), follicle-stimulating-hormone (FSH), luteinizing-hormone (LH), testosterone and
... Show MoreAmong many problems that reduced the performance of the network, especially Wide Area Network, congestion is one of these, which is caused when traffic request reaches or exceeds the available capacity of a route, resulting in blocking and less throughput per unit time. Congestion management attributes try to manage such cases. The work presented in this paper deals with an important issue that is the Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. QoS is the combination effect on service level, which locates the user's degree of contentment of the service. In this paper, packet schedulers (FIFO, WFQ, CQ and PQ) were implemented and evaluated under different applications with different priorities. The results show that WFQ scheduler gives acceptable r
... Show MoreThis article aim to estimate the Return Stock Rate of the private banking sector, with two banks, by adopting a Partial Linear Model based on the Arbitrage Pricing Model (APT) theory, using Wavelet and Kernel Smoothers. The results have proved that the wavelet method is the best. Also, the results of the market portfolio impact and inflation rate have proved an adversely effectiveness on the rate of return, and direct impact of the money supply.
Due to the large population of motorway users in the country of Iraq, various approaches have been adopted to manage queues such as implementation of traffic lights, avoidance of illegal parking, amongst others. However, defaulters are recorded daily, hence the need to develop a mean of identifying these defaulters and bring them to book. This article discusses the development of an approach of recognizing Iraqi licence plates such that defaulters of queue management systems are identified. Multiple agencies worldwide have quickly and widely adopted the recognition of a vehicle license plate technology to expand their ability in investigative and security matters. License plate helps detect the vehicle's information automatically ra
... Show MoreDoppler broadening of the 511 keV positron annihilation ??? ? was used to estimate the concentration of defects ?? different deformation levels of pure alnminum samples. These samples were compressed at room temperature to 15, 22, 28, 38,40, and 75 % thickness reduction. The two-state ^sitron-trapping model has been employed. 'I he s and w lineshape parameters were measured using high-resolution gamma spectrometer with high pure germanium detector of 2.1 keV resolution at 1.33 MeV of 60Co. The change of defects concentration (Co) with the deformation level (e) is found to obey an empirical formula of the form Cd - A £ B where A and ? are positive constants that depend mainly on the deformation procedure and the temperature at which the def
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