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Background&Objective: Addiction is one of major problems of today's world population. The first step on combating a social issue or disease is the proper re.organization. This study was done to determine the demographic characteristic, prototype of drug consumption and its relation with some personal and social variation in Gorgan (North-East, Iran). Materials&Methods: This study was a descriptive cross sectional research. The characteristics of 3005 addicts, was studied whom research voluntarily to the addiction clinic during 2001–2005 in the 5th Azar hospital of Golestan Medical Sciences University in Gorgan. The collected data was analyzed using the SPSS software. Results: From a total 3005 files which were studied, 2786 (92.7%) were male and the reminder were females. The meanSD of age was 36.9111.41. 4.8% of samples had university education, 21.3% high school diploma, and 61.7% were either unemployed or without any certain job. Opium with 66.7% was the substance with highest rate of consumption. In 40.2% of the cases, inhaling was the main route of consumption and in 30.9% of addict subjects taking the drugs orally. From the point view of type of drug, smocking cigarette, alcohol consumption, using cannabis and pill consumption, there was a meaningful correlation (P<0.05). The rate of addicted male subjects whom referred to the clinic to leave the addiction was 14.97% times of female subjects. 93.8% of the addicts persons had 20-50 years of age, which is an indicative of the real of age of addicted people in Gorgan. Conclusion: Unemployment can be considered as one of the main cause of high rate of addiction among the people in the society and in particular in this sample population. It seems that with education and creating employment in the region, to some extend the addiction can be controlled.

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Background and Objective: Substance abuse is a major concern all over the world. Due to some individual, familial and social factors the identification of related factors can help us to design a more effective strategies for the prevention of drug abuse. This study was performed to evaluate the relation between individual and familial characteristics with substance abuse tendency in self-introduced addicts. Materials and Methods: This case control study was done on 120 addicted subjects referred to addiction clinic of 5Azar hospital, Gorgan, North of Iran and 120 matched non-addicted subjects were considared as controls. Data collections were performed by questionnaire and interview. Data analyzed with using T-test, Chi-Square and logistic regression. Results: Univariate analysis showed that high school (OR=4.63, 95%CI: 1.78-12.02) and high school graduate subjects (OR=15.5, 95%CI: 4.9-50) showed higher tendency toward addiction compared to university educated people. History of substance abuse in friends (OR=7.33, 95%CI: 4.09-13.13) and previous and present cigarette smoking (OR=12.35, 95%CI: 6.65-22.93) increased abuse tendency. Permanent employment decreased abuse tendency (OR=0.109, 95%CI: 0.05-0.22) compared to temporary job. Conclusion: This study showed that addicted friends, cigarette smoking, low level of education and temporary job increase drug abuse tendency.

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Background and Objective: Risk factors of tuberculosis vary in communities according to different socioeconomic conditions. Knowing these risk factors help to control the disease. This study was done to determine the main risk factors of pulmonary tuberculosis acquisition in hospitalized patients. Materials and Methods: In this data based, case-control study 173 tuberculosis patients (as cases) and 305 non tuberculosis patients (as controls) hospitalized in Razi hospital in Ahvaz, Iran during 2001-07 were gone under investigation. Risk factors included injecting drug addiction, smoking, HIV infection, diabetes mellitus, imprisonment and corticosteroid usage. Data were analyzed using SPSS-13, Chi-Square and Fisher exact tests. Odds ratio was determined for risk factors. Results: Frequencies of the main risk factors in case and control groups were as: smoking 54.3%, 14.8% (p=0.0001, OR: 6.5), HIV infection 11.5%, 3% (p=0.0002, OR: 4.3), injecting drug addiction 18%, 3.3% (p=0.0001, OR: 6.7), diabetes mellitus 22.5%, 5.9% (p=0.0001, OR: 4.6) and imprisonment 20.2%, 3.9% (p=0.0001, OR: 6.2), respectively. Corticosteroid use and renal failure were similar in cases and controls. Conclusion: This study showed that smoking, HIV infection, injecting drug addiction, diabetes mellitus and imprisonment were the main risk factors for tuberculosis acquisition in this region.

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Background and Objective: Failure of tuberculosis (TB) treatment is a major problem of health systems in developing countries. This study was done to identify the Risk factors of tuberculosis treatment failure in the Sistan and Bulochestan province, the high risk region in South-East of Iran. Methods: This case – control study was carried out on 52 tuberculosis patients (smear -positive and category- I therapy) treated during six months period. Patients with treatment failure were considered as cases and patients with negative smear after 6 months of treatment with anti-tuberculosis (TB) medicines were considered as control group. Demographic, clinical and treatment outcomes were recorded for each patient. The multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine the predictors of treatment failure. Results: Family history of tuberculosis (95% CI: 1-12.56, OR=3.55, P=0.04,), smoking (95% CI:1.58-51.21, OR=9, P=0.01), drug addiction before or during the treatment period (95% CI: 5.28-123.91, OR=25.6, P=0.0001) and low body weight (95% CI:1.05-12.6, OR=3.65, P=0.04) were risk factors for treatment failure. Conclusion: Family history of tuberculosis, weight loss during treatment, smoking and drug addiction, were considered as risk factors for treatment failure in National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTCP) in south-east of Iran.

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Background and Objective: Methadone is a synthetic opioid which is used in opium addiction therapy and relief of acute and chronic pain. Side effects of Methadone were reported on heart and induction of Torsade De Pointes disease and increase QTc interval in electrocardiogram. This study was conducted to determine the effect of Methadone therapy on QTc interval in electrocardiogram and its relationship with dosage and duration of Methadone therapy. Method: This cohort study was conducted on 60 opium addicted patients (57 males, 3 females) whom referred to “Methadone Therapy Clinic” in 5 Azar teaching hospital in Gorgan, northern Iran during 2009-10. Patients were divided to three groups based on the dosage of methadone: 0-35 mg (27 cases), 35-55 mg (27 cases) and 55-120 mg (26 cases) per day. QTc interval in electrocardiogram was measured at the beginning of study, one month and 5 months afterward. Results: The mean±SD of QTc interval in patients at the beginning, one month and 5 months afterward of study was 0.42±0.027, 0.43±0.029 and 0.43±0.041 seconds, respectively. There was a significant increase in QTc interval after one month of methadone therapy, compared to the beginning of study. There was no significant difference in QTc interval between 1 month and 5 months following methadone therapy. There was no significant difference between QTc interval and different dosage of methadone. Conclusion: Methadone therapy increase QTc interval but there is not any relationship between dosage and duration of methadone therapy and QTc interval.

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Background and Objective: Tuberculosis (TB) is the main cause of death in the world. Half of the patient eventually will die during first 5-year of infection if they do not receive suitable treatment. According to WHO’s report, treatment success in Iran is lower than the regional and global mean. This study was conducted to identify the effective factors of treatment failure among tuberculosis patient in golestan province- Iran.

Methods: This cross- sectional study was conducted on 331 new smear positive tuberculosis patients that detected in TB laboratory in in golestan province-north of Iran during 2014. Inclusion criteria included weight more than 30kg, age greater than 13 years, diabetes, immune deficiency, liver or kidney diseases. Patients were treated according to a protocol for a period of two months on the DOTS strategy. The criterion of treatment outcome was sputum smear at the end of the second month of treatment. The effect of gender, medication regiment, age, weight, smoking, addiction and severity of smear basilli load on treatment outcome was assessed.

Results: 50.8% and 49.2% of patients were treated with combination and separate medicinal regiments, respectively. The conversion rate of smear positive was 67.7% at the end of the second months. According to multivariate logistic regression, the age of the patient (95% CI: 0.96-0.99, OR: 0.98, P=0.017), addiction (95% CI: 1.26-4.54, OR: 2.4, P=0.008), ethnicity (95% CI: 1.86-7.02, OR: 3.62, P=0.0001) and diagnostic smear bacilli load (P<0.0001) were the important effective variables.

Conclusion: The success of two months treatment was fairly low and the important factors on treatment success during the intensive phase were patient age, smoking, addiction and diagnostic smear bacilli load.