background critical-care patients are at higher risk of untreated pain, because they are often unable to communicate owing to altered mental status, tracheal intubation and sedation. objectives this study compared two pain assessment tools on tracheal intubated critically ill patients in a cardiac post-anesthesia care unit, who were unable to communicate verbally. the studied tools were “critic...

background hypoglycemia is a common and the most important complication of intensive insulin therapy in critically ill patients. because of hypoglycemia’s impact on the cardinal organs as a fuel, if untreated it could results in permanent brain damage and increased mortality. conclusions our results showed that the sofa score, aki, and hemoglobin a1c are the independent risk factors for the dev...

background: visitation of patients admitted at intensive care units (icus) is a controversial issue in the field of health care. it is commonly believed that the presence of family members might bring about physiological changes, such as tachycardia and hypertension, in icu patients. aim: this study aimed to evaluate the effects of scheduled visitation on the physiological indices of conscious ...

background: in neonatal intensive care units (nicu) different sound intensities and frequencies are produced from different sources, which may exert undesirable physiological effects on the infants. the aim of this study was to determine the noise level and its sources in the nicu and neonatal ward of al-zahra hospital of rasht, iran. methods: in this descriptive cross-sectional study, the inte...

meningitis is an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, which are known as the meninges. this infection may be caused by streptococcus pneumonia bacteria. in this study, we presented the case of a female newborn with meningitis secondary to streptococcus pneumonia. her birth weight and height were normal. after 24 hours of birth, the neonate was diagn...

background noise at intensive care units (icu) has an adverse effect on patients and icu staff. there are some evidences that sleep, recovery from critical illness and average background noise in hospitals as recommended by the us environmental protection agency (epa) and world health organization (who) should not exceed 30 a-weighted decibel (dba) and peaks during night time should be less tha...

BACKGROUND Measurement and monitoring of health care workers' hand hygiene compliance (i.e., actions/opportunities) is a key component of strategies to eliminate hospital-acquired infections. Little data exist on the expected number of hand hygiene opportunities (HHOs) in various hospital settings, however. The purpose of this study was to estimate HHOs in 2 types of hospitals--large teaching a...

The international data have indicated a growing trend of alcohol use worldwide during recent years. Although alcohol use is against cultural norms and religious law in Iran, anecdotal reports from substance abuse treatment providers show that there is demand for alcohol treatment in the country. A recent national report also documented alcohol use disorders in Iran. Development and implementati...

the incidence of nosocomial fungal infections has increased dramatically during the past two decades as the consequence of continuous increase in the number of severely immunocompromised patients. this study was done to determine the presumptive sources of nosocomial fungal infections at the intensive care unit and transplant wards (in a university- based teaching hospital in tehran) during a 1...