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:Plant-derived compounds have action alongside Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and numerous compounds, inhibit efflux pumps and hence have become known as efflux pump inhibitors. Clarithromycin is a macrolide antibiotic used to treat pharyngitis, tonsillitis, acute maxillary sinusitis and acute bacterial exacerbation of chronic bronchitis the antibacterial range is the similar as erythromycin but it is active against Mycobacterium avium complex, M.leprae and atypical mycobacteria. The in vitro antibacterial activity results of different boswellic acid compounds discovered alpha keto-boswellic acid (AKBA) to be the preponderance potent antibacterial compound alongside Gram-positive pathogens, but it showed no significant a
... Show MorePhosphorus‐based Schiff base were synthesized by treating bis{3‐[2‐(4‐amino‐1.5‐dimethyl‐2‐phenyl‐pyrazol‐3‐ylideneamino)ethyl]‐indol‐1‐ylmethyl}‐phosphinic acid with paraformaldehyde and characterized as a novel antioxidant. Its corresponding complexes [(VO)2L(SO4)2], [Ni2LCl4], [Co2LCl4], [Cu2LCl4], [Zn2LCl4], [Cd2LCl4], [Hg2LCl4], [Pd2LCl4], and [PtL
... Show MoreIntroduction: Different surgical techniques used for closure of various oral defects. While each one of these techniques has its limitation; the buccal pad of fat used in last quarter of last century as pedicle or free graft in reconstruction of small to medium, congenital and acquired defects showed good potentials for success. The present study used the BPF as pedicled flap to reconstruct intra oral defects. The study aimed to evaluate of the success of buccal pad of fat pedicled flap in the reconstruction of intra oral defects. Outlining its indications, limitations and complications. Materials and Methods: The study included 19 patients (17 males and 2 females) with age range between (1- 70 years), all patients were treated with pedic
... Show MoreBackground: Tumors of the oral cavity are under
estimated in general dental and medical practice,
some authors describe it as the forgetting disease,
others wondering if the attention paid to this disease
compared to its fatality (The 5-year survival rate is
about 50%) is enough for disease control? However;
this disease deserves a comprehensive assessment by
all dental and medical fields assumed to examine the
oral cavity regularly, especially otolaryngologist.
Objectives: To find out the sensitivity and specificity
of clinical examination in diagnosing oral tumors and
premalignant conditions by otolaryngologist.
Methods: Across sectional retrospective study was
conducted in the:
-study design:
The aim of this work is to study the factors that affect the welding joint of dissimilar metals. Austenitic stainless steel-type AISI (316L) with a thickness of (2mm) was welded to carbon steel (1mm) using an MIG spot welding. The filler metal is a welding wire of the type E80S-G (according to AWS) is used with (1.2mm) diameter and CO2 is used as shielding gas with flow rate (7L/min) for all times was used in this work.
The results indicate that the increase of the welding current tends to increase the size of spot weld, and also increases the sheer force. Whereas the sheer force increased inversely with the time of welding. Furthermore, the results indicate that i
... Show MoreResults of charge, neutron and matter densities and related form factors for one- proton halo nucleus 8B are presented using a two- frequency shell model approach. We choose a model space for the core of 7Be different from that of the extra one valence proton. One configuration is assumed for the outer proton to be in 1p1/2 - shell. The results of the matter density distributions are compared with those fitted to the experimental data. The calculated proton and matter density distributions of this exotic nucleus exhibit a long tail behavior, which is considered as a distinctive feature of halo nuclei. Elastic electron scattering form factors of this exotic nucleus are also studied. The effects of
... Show MoreIn probability theory generalizing distribution is an important area. Several distributions are inappropriate for data modeling, either symmetrical, semi-symmetrical, or heavily skewed. In this paper, a new compound distribution with four parameters called Marshall Olkin Marshall Olkin Weibull (MOMOWe) is introduced. Several important statistical properties of new distribution were studied and examined. The estimation of unknown four parameters was carried out according to the maximum likelihood estimation method. The flexibility of MOMOWe distribution is demonstrated by the adoption of two real datasets (semi-symmetric and right-skewed) with different information fitting criteria. Su
Community detection is useful for better understanding the structure of complex networks. It aids in the extraction of the required information from such networks and has a vital role in different fields that range from healthcare to regional geography, economics, human interactions, and mobility. The method for detecting the structure of communities involves the partitioning of complex networks into groups of nodes, with extensive connections within community and sparse connections with other communities. In the literature, two main measures, namely the Modularity (Q) and Normalized Mutual Information (NMI) have been used for evaluating the validation and quality of the detected community structures. Although many optimization algo
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