Background: Despite the importance of vaccines in preventing COVID-19, the willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccines is lower among RA patients than in the general population. Objective: To determine the extent of COVID-19 knowledge among RA patients and their attitudes and perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines. Methods: A qualitative study with a phenomenology approach was performed through face-to-face, individual-based, semi-structured interviews in the Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq, rheumatology unit. A convenient sample of RA patients using disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs was included until the point of saturation. A thematic content analysis approach was used to analyze the obtained data. Results: Twenty-five RA patients participated in this study. Regarding knowledge about COVID-19, most participants were able to define COVID-19, realize its contagious nature, and see the need for masks to get protection from this infection, while only a minority knew COVID-19 symptoms. Most participants obtained information about COVID-19 from TV programs and the public. Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, about 1/4 of the participants knew vaccine side effects, and only 12% of them had positive attitudes toward the vaccine. Additionally, 19 participants were unwilling to take the vaccine. The most common reasons behind this reluctance to take the vaccine include fear of the vaccine's short- and long-term side effects and the worsening of RA. Conclusion: RA patients' knowledge about COVID-19 and its vaccines was poor, and their attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines were negative.
The Log-Logistic distribution is one of the important statistical distributions as it can be applied in many fields and biological experiments and other experiments, and its importance comes from the importance of determining the survival function of those experiments. The research will be summarized in making a comparison between the method of maximum likelihood and the method of least squares and the method of weighted least squares to estimate the parameters and survival function of the log-logistic distribution using the comparison criteria MSE, MAPE, IMSE, and this research was applied to real data for breast cancer patients. The results showed that the method of Maximum likelihood best in the case of estimating the paramete
... Show MoreMetalloendo peptidase is a neutral endopeptidase that cleaves peptides at the amino side of hydrophobic residues and inactivates several peptide hormones, including atrial natriuretic factor, giucagon, enkephalin, substance p, neurotensin, oxytocin, and bradykinin. It is also a major enzyme for the degradation of beta-amyloid. This study aimed to measure enzyme activity and compare it with other biochemical changes in sera patients with diabetic nephropathy. The study included 35 pathological samples of people with diabetic nephropathy, 24 samples from males and 11 samples from females, as well as the same number of healthy people as a comparison group of 15 males, 20 females, with the ages of both groups of patients with diabetic nephropat
... Show More The research addresses the feminist lament and its representations in the contemporary Arab theatrical text as one of the purposes of the Arabic poetry and its images, samples, and reasons developed and its incentives multiplied through different time periods in which a dramatic image and representations have been manifested that harmonized with the art of theatre. In order to shed light on these representations, this study has come to look for the representations of lament phenomenon in the Arab theatre texts.
The study consists of an introduction in which the two researchers put forward the research problem, significance and objectives, and a theoretical framework which tackles a theoretical foundation for the research consi
Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is an immunological disorder associated with chronic inflammatory process of several unspecific regions of gastrointestinal tract but frequently detected in the terminal Ilium and proximal colon or both. This disease frequently presented with various oral manifestations as a consequence of inflammatory process of the disease, nutritional deficiency or medications side effects. Several therapeutic approaches have been developed for CD management that are targeting the inflammatory process and directed at controlling the host immune response. Immunosuppressants such as Azathioprine and anti-TNF α agents as well as the combination of them have been widely used as an effective therapeutic modality with a bett
... Show MoreObjective: The study aimed to 1) measure the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Iraqi pharmacy and medical students at a number of universities in Baghdad using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and 2) investigate the association between various sociodemographic factors and students’ HADS scores. Methods: This study was based on a cross-sectional descriptive design in four universities in Baghdad, Iraq. Depression and anxiety were screened using an Arabic version of the HADS. An online survey was administered via Qualtrics to convenience samples of students at four colleges of pharmacy and a college of medicine between March and June 2018. Multiple linear regression was used to identify factors associated
... Show MoreThis study was conducted in Diyala province for renal failure patients during the periods August 2015 - April 2016. Hundred renal failure patients were enrolled in the study after diagnosis by the consultant physician at Ibn-Sina Center for Dialysis in Baquba Teaching Hospital according to criteria adopted by the World Health Organization for diagnosis of renal failure disease. The number of males in patient’s sample was 61 (61%) and females was 39 (39%) with an age range of 10 – 88 year (44.7 ± 22.1 year). In addition, the study included 50 apparently healthy individuals and considered as a group control, in which the number of males and females was similar (25 individual), with an age range of 18 – 88 year (51.7 ± 17.3 year). The
... Show MoreBackground Type two diabetes (T2DM) is characterized by insufficient insulin production and secretion. Additionally, the body develops insulin resistance which affects 90–95% of diabetics. Complex cytokines, receptors, genetic pathways, and the immune system are involved in T2DM. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is one of the inflammatory cytokines associated with Type 2 diabetes. Environmental and genetic variables, including genetic polymorphisms, can increase T2DM risk and its consequences. Single nucleotide gene polymorphisms (SNPs) are important risk factors for diabetes that can be used to find the disease early and treat it better. Objective This study aimed to determine the levels of IL-18 in the serum of Iraqi patients with Type 2 diabetes
... Show More