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  Background and Objective: Effective and non-effective communication is the main part of our daily life activities.The purpose of this study was to investigate the male and female students of having opposite gender classmate and its educational impact, based on their perception and experiences.

  Material and Methods: In this qualitative study, the nursing students of Golestan University of Medical Sciences were invited to participate in interview.Considering purposeful sampling method and concept saturation, we interviewed with 20 students. The data were collected through individual interactive semi-structured interviews.The interviews were transcribed line by line, coded and categorized through analyzing "content analysis".

  Results: Both male and female participants state that having classmates with opposite- sex, due to preparation for future work-life and knowing opposite gender, is essential. Interaction between a male and female classmate is forming gradually during clinical training.Clinical learning environments are effective in better understanding of opposite gender.The experiences and perceptions of the participants in terms of having classmates with opposite gender in educational environment are explained with two main themes "learning facilitator and "learning inhibitor".

Conclusion: Since the academic period is short, it seems that preparation for future work-life is stressful and also being classmate with opposite gender is a major challenge for the students too. Although the students know that having opposite-sex classmate is a necessary issue, due to lack of experiences in their previous school years, this sudden exposure may cause emotional conflict and as a result learning process is inhibited. Having knowledgeable and trustworthy consultants in university may be helpful for the students to deal with their social condition and cultural environment and conduct hidden curriculum

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  Background and Objective : Spouse abuse, which has physical and psychological consequences on victims, is one of the most important health problems in many countries. The purpose of the present study was to investigate wife abuse among the women referred to health care centers of Gorgan, 2008.

  Material and Methods : The subjects of this descriptive analytical study were 300 married women selected by easy sampling. Data collection was performed by using "Spouse Abuse" questionnaire, consisting of 27 items which are related to emotional, physical and sexual domains. The validity was confirmed by faculty members and reliability by alpha cronbach (=0.86).

  Results : The results show that wife Abuse is severe (6.5%), no report of Spouse Abuse (16.5%), sexual abuse (23%), physical punishment (54.5%), and psychological abuse (82.5%). The rate of Spouse Abuse is lower in younger couples. There is significant relationship between wife Abuse and the age of women, smoking and drug abuse of their husbands (P=0.000).

  Conclusion : All kind of wife abuse has devastating health effects on women
well-being. Regarding the high rate of psychological abuse in relationships, it is necessary to consider marital counseling as a priority for mental health of families.

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  Background and Objective: Appropriate spending of free time can be considered as an effective means to promote the physical, psychological and moral aspects of life and to avoid of social misconduct. Since it is true for students, we tried to study the leisure time of university students in Golestan province, 2007.

  Material and Methods: In this descriptive survey (2007), the subjects were 1080 male and female students, selected­ by a randomized Multi-Stage sampling, from some universities (Golestan university of Medical sciences, Golestan University of agriculture and natural resources, Gorgan and Aliabad Azad University) in Golestan province.The data were collected using a valid and reliable questionnaire including 63 questions, and described by descriptive statistics.

  Results: The students were female (55.8%), male (54.2%) and range of 18-26 years. Their leisure time were more than 3 hours (49.3%), less than 3 hours (31.7%) only one hour in a day (12.5%) and nothing (6.5%). The students spent their time by sending message
(30.1%), surfing the internet (27.2%), and physical activity such as walking and climbing (15.8%), talking on the phone (21%), chatting with friends (9.4%) and sleeping and watching movies (3.8%).

  Conclusion: Because text messaging and surfing the internet are the main hobbies of the students , we recommend parents and university officials to have appropriate policy to help young people for using them in a healthy way.

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  Background and Objective: Happiness is related with efficiency, hope, power of thinking, academic achievement and quality of life. Any efforts to create a happy climate for the students may produce positive outcomes directly or indirectly on the society. The first step to would understand the students experiences of happiness in academic environment.

  Material and Methods : ­ In this phenomenological study the data gathered through open-interactive interviews with 50 university students. The sampling was purposeful and continued till achieving data saturation. The data analyzed according Colliazi approach.

  Results: The main themes that emerged were "peace of mind and heart" and "passion and inspiration". Being purposeful and feeling accomplishment also were two factors that made the students happy.

  Conclusion: ­ Since­ the participants perceived happiness and being purposeful, and achievement related together therefore, developing approaches to create a happy university environment combined with spiritual wellbeing should be considered important for the educational policy makers.

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  Background and Objective: Injection-site pain and bruising associated with subcutaneous injection of Heparin is one of the physical and psychological discomforts in patients. This study aimed at determining the effect of injection duration on the size of bruising and the severity of injection pain.

  Material and Methods: This quasi-experimental study was designed on 119 patients hospitalized in Panje Azar teaching center in Gorgan, 2009. For each patient, two subcutaneous injections of 10 and 30 seconds were performed with a 12-hour interval. Data collection was carried out using a researcher-made checklist that consists of two sections, demographic characteristics and a section to record the extent of bruising and pain intensity. The Extent of bruising was measured using clear flexible ruler within 48-72 hours and pain intensity by visual analog scale (VAS) immediately after Heparin injection. Data were analyzed using SPSS- 16 by central tendency and statistical tests.

  Results: The Findings show that 10-second injection in comparison to 30-second injection is more effective in increasing the exent of bruising and pain intensity. There is significant difference between the two methods (P<0.05).

  Conclusion: The duration of subcutaneous injection has an effect on bruising extent and the pain following the administration of Heparin in hospitalized patients. The findings can be used in clinical setting and nursing education.

 

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  Background and Objective : Socio-economical and scientific development has brought about rapid increase of elders and changed old traditions. Quality of life of elders with good wife’s, children's and friend’s support is higher than that of others. Hence, we aimed at determining people‘s attitude toward elders in Golestan province, 2009.

  Materials and Methods : This cross-sectional study was carried out via convenience sampling on 300 people, who resided in four cities of Golestan province and aged 13-60 years, having at least one elder around. Data was collected by kogan questionnaire and and analyzed by Kruskal-wallis and mann-whitney.

  Results : The mean age of the subjects is 24.8. They are Fars (53%) and Turkmen (42%). There is significant relation between attitude toward elders and Variables such as age (P=0.003), ethnicity (P=0/000) and education (P=0/01. Men and women younger than 25 years and people with higher education have more negative attitude. Turkmens have higher positive attitude toward the aged.

  Conclusion : Since more negative attitude toward the aged are reported among teens and highly educated adults, we recommend officials for performing some essential interventions to improve this attitude .

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  Background and Objective: Body image has a remarkable affect on people's lives, their self-esteem, mental well being and health. The aim of this study was to survey the body image of faculty members and staff engaged in schools of Golestan University of Medical Sciences.

 Materials and Methods:­ In this descriptive-analytical study­(2008),­using census, the subjects are educational, clerical and ordinary staff of all faculties of Golestan University of medical Sciences.­­ The instrument was a­valid and reliable­(r=­0.71)"body­ image"­questionnaire. The data related to variables such as gender, type of work, appearance, height and weight" were analyzed using analytical and descriptive statistics.

 Results: Of 225 participants, 63.6% of them have good, 33.6% moderate and 3.1% had a bad body image. There is significant relation between body image and variables such as gender (P=0.003), appearance (P=0.001) and height (P=0.027), but it is not significant for type of work, school and weight with body image.

 Conclusion:­ With regard to the importance of body image on mental health and because of constant interaction among different staff, having a positive body image may be effective in providing high quality at work. Therefore, applying some strategies to promote a good body image is necessary.

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Background and Objective: Patients with  life threatening diseases have to deal with the death issue. One of the common psychological problem is anxiety esp. death anxiety . This study aimed to  determine the level of death anxiety in hemodialysis patients.

Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study  was conducted  on all 150 patients admitted to Panj-azar teaching hospital for hemodialysis, 2013. The data was collected by demographic checklist and Templer Death Anxiety questionnaire scoring 0 to 15 (0-6 for low, 7-9 for moderate and 10-15 for high anxiety).  We analyzed the data  by independent t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient (P<0.05).

Results: Twenty-four point seven percent of the patients had low , 10%  average  and 65.3% of them had high death anxiety. Average scores of death anxiety in men and in women were 8.21±4.82 and 11.95±3.81, respectively. The relationship of death anxiety with sex (P<0.001), employment status (P<0.001), and age (P<0.002) was significant.

Conclusion: Bases on the results, the death anxiety is high in more than half of the patients with hemodialysis.

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Background and Objective: Nowadays, smoking is a widespread health problem in the world. Hookah smoking is common in many countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa. This study aimed to investigate the causes of hookah smoking in adolescents in Kurdkoy, 2013.

Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 266 teenagers selected via multi stage sampling. The questionnaires were distributed among  the  people who were present at the Coffeehouses and the results were reported by descriptive statistics.

Results: The results showed that 51.5% of the participants said they use Hookah every day. The reasons were pastime (56.4), unemployment (41.7), Pleasant feeling (33.8), being with friends (33.5), fatigue reduction (33.5) and the availability of hookah (32.3).

Conclusion: To minimize the tendency to Hookah smoking, we recommend planning some activities for leisure time, "learning to say no" and training how to reduce anxiety and fatigue.

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Background: It is believed that COVID-19 has caused significant fear among older adults. The province of Golestan has a unique ethnic diversity, which requires examining the beliefs and concerns of older adults about health and disease. The aim of this study was to compare the fear of COVID-19 among Persian and Turkmen older adults.
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 500 older adults of Persian and Turkmen ethnicities covered by health centers in Bandar Turkmen (Golestan-Iran) from 2021 to 2022. Sampling was done by availability, and the samples were extracted from the list of older adults in the NAB system. Demographic data and the COVID-19 fear questionnaire were used to collect information. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 18 and Mann-Whitney U, Chi-square, and ANOVA tests at a significance level of 0.05.
Results: The mean and standard deviation age of the participants in the Persian and Turkmen ethnicities were 70.99±6.91 and 73.66±7.66, respectively. The mean score of fear of COVID-19 in Persian older adults was 20.59±2.24, and in Turkmen older adults was 22.02±1.34, which showed a statistically significant difference (p<0.001). Fear of COVID-19 had a significant statistical relationship with occupation, education level, history of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization history, and having a COVID-19 patient in the family (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that fear of COVID-19 was higher among Persian older adults. Ethnic and clinical differences in COVID-19 can have an impact on preventive care in the healthcare system.

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