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.
Algae have been used in different applications in various fields such as the pharmaceutical industry, environmental treatments, and biotechnology. Studies show that the preparation of nanoparticles by a green synthesis method is a promising solution to many medical and environmental issues. In the current study, the green alga Stigeoclonium attenuatum (Hazen) F.S. Collins 1909 was isolated and identified from the Al-Hillah River (Governorate of Babylon) in the middle of Iraq. The green synthesis by the aqueous extract of algae was used to prepare the nanoflakes of ZnO. Nanoflakes of ZnO are characterized by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) with flakes shape and dimensions ranging be
... Show MoreNathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) has been widely known for his special interest in the female characters. In many of his novels, he narrates the conditions, values, and the institutions that surround and control the life of women, leading them to be victims. In “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844), the heroine, Beatrice is created to be victimized by her loved ones (her father and lover). This paper focuses on the term “victim,” it shows its aspects through the development of Beatrice’s character. The paper also studies a female character in the male-dominated society, to show the cruelty done to her, and how she is considered to be a second rate person, who is unable to live normally, or at least to save herself from dea
... Show MoreAmongst the literary writers who used their art to direct the attention towards the issue of woman and her rights in a proper life is the English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), who has been praised for his “openness to the feminine principle” 1 as Irving Howe put it. Hardy’s wide readings have changed his way of dealing with and thinking about so many critical issues which started to float on the surface of the English society during the mid and late of the 19th century. His readings for a number of writers, who seem of huge impact on his writings as he later admits that – “[his] pages show harmony of view with
... Show MoreThe present study attempts to examine verbal/nonverbal impoliteness in the classroom interaction and outside it in one of the movies, namely, The Marva Collins. Impoliteness, which is significantly studied within pragmatics, is a negative attitude towards particular behaviors. It always presumes to have emotional concerns for at least one participant who has caused it. This study is an attempt to examine verbal/nonverbal impoliteness in The Marva Collins movie. The study aims to investigate the different types of impoliteness strategies used in the four selected scenes and find out whether the speaker’s status has anything to do with the types of impoliteness. Besides, the functions performed are also examined by following a qual
... Show MoreThis study aims to design unified electronic information system to manage students attendance in Lebanese French university/Erbil, as a system that simplifies the process of entering and counting the students absence, and generate absence reports to expel students who passed the acceptable limit of being absent, and by that we can replace the traditional way of using papers to count absence, with a complete electronically system for managing students attendance, in a way that makes the results accurate and unchangeable by the students.
In order to achieve the study's objectives, we designed an information syst
... Show MoreThe present work deals with five species of parasitic Hymenoptera belonging to Pteromalidae, Eupelmidae and Eurytornidae which have been reared from brachid beetles. A new species, Eurytoma irakensis is described and the species, Bruchocida orientalis Crawford is recorded for the first time from Iraq.
Mixed convection heat transfer in a vertical concentric annulus packed with a metallic porous media and heated at a constant heat flux is experimentally investigated with water as the working fluid. A series of experiments have been carried out with a Rayleigh number range from Ra=122418.92 to 372579.31 and Reynolds number that based on the particles diameter of Red=14.62, 19.48 and 24.36. Under steady state condition, the measured data were collected and analyzed. Results show that the wall surface temperatures are affected by the imposed heat flux variation and Reynolds number variation. The variation of the local heat transfer coefficient and the mean Nusselt number are presented and analyzed. An empirical
... Show MoreThe present study was set to demonstrate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection and its effects on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) through determining their serum levels of anti-dsDNA and IL-18 antibodies. For this purpose, the sera from 132 SLE and/or toxoplasmosis patients and 30 healthy women, were collected. The study sample was divided into four groups of SLE, toxoplasmosis, SLE coinfected with toxoplasmosis, and healthy control. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies were examined for all the samples using ELISA kit. The results showed a high mean level of anti-Toxoplasma IgG among SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (104.8792±12.31585pg/ml) in comparison to that in toxoplasmosis patients (91.1705±12.577
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