Objectives: The study aim was to explore the knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of Iraqi physicians regarding generic and locally manufactured medicines. Methods: A total of 124 physicians were involved in this cross -sectional study. The convenience sample was collected from five public hospitals in Baghdad. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed and collected in-person. Fisher's Exact Test was used to measure the association between physician years of experience, gender and categorical (perception and knowledge) variables. Results: Most respondent answers regarding the knowledge of generic medicines were incorrect. Only up to one-third of the participants knew that generic medicines are therapeutically equivalent to brand name medicines (26.6%), as safe as brand name medicines (34.7%) and required to meet similar safety standards as brand name medicines (12.1%). With respect to perception, many physicians had negative perceptions about generic medicines such as viewing generic medicines as lower quality (57.3%) and cause more side effects (41.1%) compared to brand name medicines. Regarding physician attitudes toward generic medicines, about two-thirds (64.5%) of the physicians were willing to prescribe low cost medicines; however, only about half (51.6%) of the physicians reported they offer generic medicines to their patients. Finally, 64.5% of the participants were not comfortable with pharmacist replacing prescribed brand with generic medicines. Conclusions: In general, Iraqi physicians have negative perceptions and attitudes about generic and locally manufactured medicines. Significant gaps were identified in the knowledge and perceptions among physicians regarding generic medicines especially in relation to efficacy and safety of generic medicines. Article Type: Original Research
Aim: This study aims to determine both the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice in clinical breast examination in women and the relationship between knowledge and practice.Data collection was performed within a three-month period starting from February 2019 on. Subjects and Method: A cross-sectional analytical study included 657 non-randomly selected women visiting primary health care centers in Baghdad city with an average of age between (20-59) years old. Results: Only 51.8% ever heard of clinical breast examination. The mean knowledge score for clinical breast examination was (51.2±44). Only 5.5% of women performed regular clinical breast examinations. Participants who adequately practice clinical breast examinatio
... Show MoreThe picture has taken a place that sometimes enables it to take precedence over media analysis، psychology، and political communication.
The image has the ability to influence to obtain persuasion، not only emotionally or
dramatically، but also on the level of commercial and political persuasion. In every
image، the intention of that persuasion is hidden.
It can be identified by a set of underlying dimensions such as vitality، social dominance، and confidence، for which a group of specific suggestions or movements، such
as a smile، the movement of hands، or the nature and way of looking with the eyes، is
established. The visual image often precedes its verbal counterpart in the proce
Background: The World Health Organization was declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. As a result, to keep the coronavirus under control, protective technique like face covering is required. Vaccination, on the other hand, is regarded as a preventative and effective measure. As nursing students play an important role in the future of nursing, their perception regarding wearing mask and taking vaccine can be crucial in preventive measures regarding COVID-19. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the perception of nursing students’ regarding wearing mask and coronavirus vaccines. Design: A descriptive correlational design was used to guide this study. Settings and Participants: A total of 255 undergraduate
... Show MoreThis study evaluated the knowledge and practice of breast self-examination (BSE), among a sample of educated Iraqi women. The study sample comprised 858 women aged 18–62 years affiliated to 6 major Iraqi universities, categorized according to occupation as teaching staff (11.5%), administrative staff (18.0%) and students (70.5%). Data were collected by a self-completed questionnaire. In all, 93.9% of the women had heard about BSE, the main source of information was television (39.9%), doctors (18.4%) and the awareness campaign of the Iraqi National Breast Cancer Research Programme (11.6%). Only 53.9% of the women practised BSE; the most common excuses by those that did not were lack of knowledge of the significance of BSE (42.0%) and lack
... Show MoreThe increasing availability of computing power in the past two decades has been use to develop new techniques for optimizing solution of estimation problem. Today's computational capacity and the widespread availability of computers have enabled development of new generation of intelligent computing techniques, such as our interest algorithm, this paper presents one of new class of stochastic search algorithm (known as Canonical Genetic' Algorithm ‘CGA’) for optimizing the maximum likelihood function strategy is composed of three main steps: recombination, mutation, and selection. The experimental design is based on simulating the CGA with different values of are compared with those of moment method. Based on MSE value obtained from bot
... Show MoreA set of ten drug compounds containing an amino group in the structure were determined theoretically. The parameters were entered into a model to forecast the optimal values of practical (log P) medicinal molecules. The drugs were evaluated theoretically using different types of calculations which are AM1, PM3, and Hartree Fock at the basis set (HF/STO-3G). The Physico-chemical data like (entropy, total energy, Gibbs Free Energy,…etc were computed and played an important role in the predictions of the practical lipophilicity values. Besides, Eigenvalues named HOMO and LUMO were determined. Linearity was shown when correlated between the experimental data with the evaluated physical properties. The statistical analysis was used to analy
... Show MoreThe aim of study was to explore pharmacist insights toward the impact of prospective implementation of the national health insurance program on patients, providers and Iraqi health system.
This was a qualitative study including semi-structured face-to-face (mostly) interviews with experienced pharmacists. The interview guide included open-ended questions about the impact of the national health insurance program on patients and healthcare providers at three levels: quality of services, costs, and frequency of visits. Potential challenges were also discussed. Interviews were conducted in four provinces from March to May 2022. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview findings and generate themes and subthemes.
The
... Show MoreBackground: Undergraduate dental students are more susceptible to situations of stress that affected quality of sleep, such profiles of stress may result in sleep bruxism and/or awake bruxism, parafunctions that can affect oral and general health. The aim of the study was to evaluate the association of sleep bruxism, awake bruxism and sleep quality among dental students. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed including 260 Iraqi dental students from university of Baghdad aged from 20to25years old. Students enrolled in the third and fifth class participated in the study. The Pittsburgh Sleep Questionnaire Index (PSQI) was used for data collection. The PSQI was distributed during lecture classes. Sleep bruxism and awake
... Show MoreMental disorders (MDs) are a common problem in Primary Health Care Centers (PHCCs). Many people with serious MDs are challenged by symptoms and disabilities that result from the disease and by stereotypes and prejudice due to misconceptions about mental illness. This study aims at evaluating the knowledge, and attitude toward mental health concepts and services and causes of the reluctance to seek those services among people attending PHCCs. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. The random sampling technique was used to include (10) of Directorates of Health (DoHs) coverage north, middle, and south of Iraq. The study was executed in (50) selected PHCs, (5) PHCCs in each DoH involved randomly selected (30) people attending th
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