Introduction: The COVID-19 is an emerging global pandemic which has been developed from a new type of coronavirus in the form of a viral infection with high transmissibility and spread. The disease has so far infected millions and killed thousands. Since the outbreak of the disease, many researchers have become interested in modeling and estimating the probable number of infected people with COVID-19 or estimating the mortality rate from this pandemic in a specific period of time and in different countries. These models make it possible to better understand the behavior of this pandemic and predict its trend. This study aimed to model the mortality rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic in five consecutive months in Iran. Materials and Methods: The Autoregressive (AR) model and the Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) model were analyzed to test the ability of these models to estimate the mortality rate of COVID-19 disease from March to July. The performance of these models was evaluated with three criteria: mean square error, cost function, and final prediction error. The models were evaluated on the number of deaths confirmed by the Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Results: The results of the analysis showed that the AR model with a rank of ten was successfully able to predict the mortality rate of COVID-19. Conclusion: The proposed model can predict the death rate of the COVID-19 pandemic. Estimating the mortality rate of the COVID-19 pandemic helps to better understand the behavior of this disease and predict its trends, which affect the type and timing of actions to control it.
Introduction & Aim: Patients with acute coronary syndrome suffer from severe consequences such as relapse and readmission due to insufficient comprehension of educational content and subsequently failure in treatment adherence. Using some strategies in order to improvement of their knowledge and comprehension about taught content may be effective on disease outcomes. The current study aimed to determine the effect of teach-back education on readmission in patients with acute coronary syndrome. Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 70 patients with acute coronary syndrome admitted to the cardiology and cardiac care units of two Hospitals in Zahedan were selected conveniently in 2019. Then patients were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups through using color cards. Data collection tools included demographic information form and a form for recording the readmission. Intervention was based on teach-back education method during three sessions of 30-45 minutes individually and 24 hours after admission to the hospital. Three months after the intervention, readmission was assessed. Data analysis was done through descriptive statistics, independent t-test and chi-square test in SPSS21. Results: Results showed there was no significant difference between two groups in terms of some variables such as age, gender, educational level, marital status and diabetes history (P>0.05). In intervention group,14.3 percent of patients and in control group 37.1 percent reported readmission during three months after the intervention and there was significant difference between the two groups in terms of readmission (P=0.029). Conclusion: Teach-back education reduces the cases of readmission in patients with acute coronary syndrome. Given the importance of nurses' role in education, this educational method can be used to improve disease outcomes.
Background and aim: Due to the side effects of invasive techniques, the use of non-invasive techniques with continuous monitoring has been considered by health centers. In this study, invasive and non-invasive techniques for monitoring arterial blood gases were compared during patients' weaning from mechanical ventilation after cardiac surgery. Methods: In a descriptive-cross-sectional study, 70 patients who were candidates for cardiac surgery were assessed during 1397 at Jamaran Heart Hospital and the values for oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide measured by non-invasive methods (pulse oximetry and capnography) and invasive (ABG) were compared Results: The results of the study showed that there is a difference of 1.7±4.54 between the copography and PaCO2 values, and a difference of 0.92±2.29 between the SPO2 and SaO2 values. There was a positive and significant correlation between ETCO2 and PaCO2 (P<0.001, r=0.43). There was also a correlation between SPO2 and SaO2 numbers (P=0.03, r=0.25). The results of the linear regression test showed that ETCO2 and SPO2 can predict PaCO2 and SaO2 using the following formula, respectively. PaCO2= 20.61+0.45(ETCO2) , SaO2= 63.65+0.25(SPO2) . Conclusion: Capnography and pulse oximetry can be used as non-invasive, inexpensive, and safe methods in weaning patients from mechanical ventilation after cardiac surgery. For a more detailed examination, it is recommended that studies be performed with a larger sample size, as well as in patients with different physical conditions and severity of the disease.
Background and Aim: Hospitalization in Intensive Care Units (ICU) causes sleep and comfort disturbances in patients and has an adverse effect on the recovery process of these patients. One of the factors affecting sleep and comfort of patients is ambient noise. This study aimed to determine the effect of the white noise on sleep quality and comfort of patients. Material and methods: The present study was a randomized, double-blind clinical trial with 60 patients undergoing open heart surgery who had admitted in the ICU in Hamadan in 2018. Patients in the experimental group selected one of the three sounds of rain, sea and river waves and played them with headphones for three nights for 20-30 minutes. The control group did not receive any intervention. The sleep quality of patients was measured using standard St Mary's Hospital Sleep Quality Questionnaires and VAS. Results: The results showed that there were no differences in demographic and clinical characteristics (nausea, medications, type of surgery, length of stay, duration of surgery) in the control and experimental groups. The results also showed that using white noise significantly reduces sleep disturbance and increases comfort in the experimental group compared to the control group (P <0.001). Conclusion: The use of white noise such as the sound of sea waves, river sound and rain in ICU patients after open heart surgery reduces their sleep disturbance and increases their comfort.
