Firoozeh Zare-Farashbandi; Elham Koohkan; Gholamreza Rajabi; Saeed Yousofian
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Cancer in children includes cases of cancer diagnosed in patients under 15 years old. In Iran, Cancer is the second cause of death for children under 14 and is the cause of 4% of deaths in children under 5 and 13% of deaths in children between 5 and 10 years old. In Isfahan ...
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Background and Objectives: Cancer in children includes cases of cancer diagnosed in patients under 15 years old. In Iran, Cancer is the second cause of death for children under 14 and is the cause of 4% of deaths in children under 5 and 13% of deaths in children between 5 and 10 years old. In Isfahan province, a total of 600 children have been currently diagnosed with cancer which has increased to 729 cases since the start of this project in April 2018. Since family is the main and primary source of support for children, it is necessary to remember that any care provided by family members of children suffering from cancer is affected by their access to credible and suitable information. Therefore, the first condition for proper decision-making by these children’s families is access to accurate information and optimal use of this information. Patients require information that is timely, relevant, and easily understandable. The information needs of patients suffering from different conditions are also different. Furthermore, attention to the information needs of parents of young patients is as important as attention to the information needs of adult patients because young children are incapable of searching for relevant information and providing necessary self-care and these responsibilities are instead shouldered by their families. The reason for selecting this condition in the current study was the prevalence of cancer especially in the Isfahan region. The statistics provided by Isfahan’s Seyed-Al-Shohada (Omid) hospital also confirm this prevalence. Since the number of studies on this topic is small in Iran and since children are themselves unable to access information relevant to their condition which means access of their families to relevant information can play an important role in the control and treatment of their condition, the current study aimed to identify and prioritize the information needs of families of children with cancer visiting Isfahan’s Seyed-Al-Shohada (Omid) hospital to improve sharing health information and therefore facilitate their treatment.
Methodology: This is an applied study conducted using a survey approach. The study population consisted of the families of all 729 children suffering from cancer visiting Isfahan’s Seyed-Al-Shohada (Omid) hospital between April and September 2018. Based on the Cochran equation, the sample size of 244 was selected using purposeful noncertified sampling from volunteers meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria included being family members with at least one child with cancer and a desire to participate in the study while the inclusion criteria were refusal to continue participating in the study. The data-gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with two parts. The first part included 15 items related to demographic information and the second part contained 4 components and 48 items identified based on 35 interviews with families of children suffering from cancer which were scored based on a 5-degree Likert scale (1=very low, 2=low, 3=medium, 4=high, 5=very high). Among these items, the first component included 19 items, the second 15 items, the third one was 7 items, and the final and fourth components included 7 items. The formal and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by oncologists and experts on information-seeking behavior. The questionnaire’s reliability was calculated using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient which was equal to 0.96 for the entire questionnaire, 0.95 for the first component, 0.93 for the second component, 0.91 for the third component, and 0.84 for the last component. Questionnaires were distributed and retrieved during face-to-face meetings. An informed consent form was signed by all participants and they were assured of the confidentiality of the information. An ethics code for the study was also acquired from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Data was analyzed using SPSS software with descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation) and analytical statistics (ANOVA with repeated observations, and LSD follow-up test).
Findings: To identify important information needs of patients’ families, a cutoff line of 0.75 of the total score (3.75 out of 5) was used. Based on this criterion, 33 items among the total of 48 items were identified as prioritized information needs of families, and 15 items were eliminated. The ANOVA test with repetition showed that there is a significant difference between the average information need scores of families in different components (P<0.001). The LSD follow-up test showed that the average score of the fourth component (social, financial, and spiritual support) was significantly higher than the second (providing information about cancer by medical staff) and third (healthcare and consultation facilities and equipment) components (P<0.001) while the average score of these two components was significantly higher than the first component (Access, retrieval and sharing of health information) (P<0.05). There was no significant difference between the average scores of the second and third components (P=0.10). Therefore, among the components of health information needs of families of cancer patients, the highest priority belonged to the fourth component (social, financial, and spiritual support), second (providing information about cancer by medical staff), and third (healthcare and consultation facilities and equipment) components had the next priority and the first component (Access, retrieval and sharing of health information) had the lowest priority. Furthermore, the average total score of health information needs for families of children with cancer was calculated to be 72.7 with a standard deviation of 16.1 from a total score of 100. The most important item in the first component of health information needs was “providing sufficient information to family members before and after surgery”; the most important item of the second component was “knowledge on treatment’s success chance”. Furthermore, the most important items for the third and fourth components were “access to physicians and medical staff for further questions” and “spiritual support of family members”, respectively.
Discussion: The results of the current study showed that the health information needs of families of children suffering from cancer are related to the health information needs of families of such children worldwide as well as the health information needs of families of sick children. However, there were some differences in the prioritization of health information needs which can be due to cultural, social, financial, and spiritual factors, type of disease, and children’s age group. The highest priority of families in the current study was financial, social, and spiritual support which can be due to– the financial difference between Iran with other countries. Furthermore, the component of access, retrieval, and sharing of the information has the lowest priority for the families and they prefer to gain their information from the medical staff. This difference can be due to differences in literacy levels compared to other countries and should be taken note of by the healthcare authorities. Finally, constant and regular assessment of health information needs of parents can help healthcare providers in providing timely and relevant information thus reducing the stress and anxiety of families, as well as improving their participation in self-case and homecare. On the other hand, low health literacy among family members and their reliance on information provided by medical staff means that clinical librarians can use access to various information sources to provide services to parents of children suffering from chronic conditions such as cancer, improve their information seeking skills and health literacy and play an indirect role in reducing the medical and healthcare costs of families and the country as a whole. Therefore, we suggest identifying and prioritizing the health information needs of families in other parts of the country and comparing the results to the results of the current study to acquire an overview of the health information needs of families of children with cancer in Iran. This information can then help policymakers and healthcare authorities in future planning and policymaking.
raana kousari; Ali Hossein Ghasemi; Firoozeh Zare-Farashbandi; Sayed Javad Mirsaeed
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Indexing texts are one of the important tools that help researchers, scholars, students, searchers, and others who need documents with complete information in them researches. One of the benefits of credible indices is the high number of international referrals to these indices, ...
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Background and Objectives: Indexing texts are one of the important tools that help researchers, scholars, students, searchers, and others who need documents with complete information in them researches. One of the benefits of credible indices is the high number of international referrals to these indices, which increases the visibility of these papers globally. As a result, it is possible to be cited with other papers and provide the opportunity to solve the content of the papers in the epistemological body of the scientific field related to their subject. The highest indices in the current division of the Ministry of Health are ISI, PubMed and Scopus. Given that valid indices have indicators for evaluating journals and accepting them, so the possibility of accepting various articles in indices based on the indicators that these indices apply can be different. Identifying the status and composition of papers indexed in the indices, while presenting an image of the orientation of the researchers in the methodology used in the research, can be an introduction to the study of the orientation of the incident in the content composition of the indices under consideration. Methodology: The population of this analytical cross-sectional study was all papers indexed at ISI, PubMed and Scopus bases with organizational affiliation of Ahwaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences and the 2015 publish date. The research sample was determined using a census method and 281 papers were included in the present study. Then, the status of the articles studied was studied with three factors: "type of study", "aim of the study" and "field and subject area", as well as the relationship between the methodological tend of the papers in the three factors mentioned with the probability of accepting papers in valid indices. The relationship between the methodological orientation of the two "aim" and "type of study" factors with the "field and subject area" was also examined. The descriptive statistics such as charts & etc were used andChi-square test by SPSS software was used for analyzing the data. Findings: Of the 281 entered papers in this research, the most papers were cross-sectional analytical (86 articles, 30.6%), and the smallest papers were case report (0 articles, 0%), the cohort (0 articles, 0%) and then systematic review (1 article, 0.4%). Also, the 3 international indices examined in terms of the type of study papers were oriented toward papers of a cross-sectional type. The highest number of studied papers were in the field of public health (37 studies, 13.2%), and the smallest number of studies were in the field of medical history, hospitals and health centers, medical profession (0 studies). Chi-square test determined the relationship between descriptive cross-sectional studies and general public health topics in the present study. Also, there was a meaningful statistical relationship between descriptive cross-sectional studies and the subject area of contagious diseases. A direct relationship between the aim of treatment and the subject area of the pathology in the studied papers was also confirmed by this test. Also, the Chi-square test between the papers aimed at treatment and the subject area of pharmacology has also shown a direct relationship. Finally, this test showed that there was a direct relationship between the prevention objective and the public health subject in the studies. Discussion: Assigning the most types of studies to cross-sectional studies can have many reasons, including the fact that researchers are more familiar with the stages of these studies, doing cross-sectional research is possible in many disciplines and groups at the university. On the other hand, each type of study has its own advantages and very few reports of cases, narrative review and systematic review, and the absence of a cohort study in the studied papers is not justified. In reviewed studies, the high number of studies aimed at treatment in the studies papers in this study itself is a strength point, however, the low number of articles aimed at prevention is one of the weaknesses of the university. One of the reasons that a large number of papers have been in public health subject area, is the multitude of related groups in the field. Also, in these groups, the number of professors and students is high and the research topics are very diverse. One of the reasons for the direct link between "public health" studies and "descriptive-cross-sectional" studies in the studied papers can be the nature of research in this regard. However, the public health area has received the largest number of articles in studied papers, the lack of systematic reviews and reviews in this subject area is unexpected. The results showed that the acceptance of clinical trials in international profiles was lower than other types of studies. Perhaps the credible international indices, due to the importance of clinical trials, would have a more rigorous line-up than other studies in accepting these studies.
Firoozeh Zare-Farashbandi; Azra Daei
Abstract
Purpose: It’s essential to review and update medical library and information science curriculum, because of influence from developments in other related sciences. This study aimed to compare and implement the curriculum of the Master of Science curriculum of medical library, with curriculums of ...
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Purpose: It’s essential to review and update medical library and information science curriculum, because of influence from developments in other related sciences. This study aimed to compare and implement the curriculum of the Master of Science curriculum of medical library, with curriculums of similar fields in Iran. Methods: This research used comparative method. Checklist of curriculums was used for data collection, medical library and information science, knowledge and information science, library and information science. Results: Medical Library and information science curriculum was mostly similar with field of study curriculum in Islamic Azad University. Compare in current areas of study showed this medical librarianship had most closely match with information science area of study (93.75%) and the lowest similarity with digital library management (37.5%). Conclusion: Similarity between medical library and information science curriculum with other curriculums showed this field couldn’t fulfill numerous and varied needs of the medical community and related sciences. Changing in curriculum and creation of area of study like medical librarianship, hospital librarianship, evidence base librarianship and etc. could fill the gaps.
