Introduction: A current global concern is the increase in the aging population and longevity of humans and the emergence of chronic diseases, treatment costs, and the length of hospital stay in elderly. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the costs and length of stay of elderly and middle-aged patients hospitalized in Tehran's Milad Hospital, during year 2012.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on a population involving 36 327 middle-aged and elderly people, who were randomly selected from 400 patients. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS 16 software.Results: The sample included 231 cases and 169 elderly individuals, who were middle-aged. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the costs of hospitalization among elderly adults and their stay in hospitals (P<0.05).Conclusions: The results of this study as well as the increasing number of seniors in the coming decades indicates that it is necessary to align with the rising costs of health policy issues and major changes to fix the problems of the elderly hospital stay.

Background and Objectives: Although a significant number of Covid-19 patients tend to be hospitalized, few studies have explored the factors related to the hospitalization of these patients. This study was conducted to investigate the factors affecting the hospitalization and duration of hospitalization of the patients with Covid-19 in Shohada Imam Hossein Hospital in Tehran in the first half of 2020. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed by convenience sampling method. Data were collected using a two-part researcher-made checklist. The checklist was sent to 15 specialists in the fields of epidemiology, nursing, statistics and general practitioners to check the content validity. Content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) were used to check the validity of the content of the checklist and Cronbach's alpha index was used to assess the reliability. To investigate the relationship between the studied variables, independent t-test, t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Spearman and Pearson test were used at a significance level of 0. 05. Results: The Cronbach's alpha index of the study checklist was equal to (r = 0. 824). The total values of the CVI and CVR index for the whole checklist were found to be 0. 870 and 0. 733respectively. Therefore, it can be claimed that the checklist used in this study an acceptable level of content validity. 291 patients participated in this study. The mean and standard deviation of the length of hospital stay was 7. 59 ± 4. 14 days. There was a significant relationship between total length of hospital stay and each of the following variables: history of renal impairment (P-value = 0. 034), presence of symptoms of shortness of breath (P-value = 0. 007), nausea (P-value = 0. 016), oxygen therapy (P-value = 0. 022), use of Apotel (P-value = 0. 045), use of Kaltera (P-value = 0. 020), and hydroxychloroquine use (P-value = 0. 022). Conclusion: Symptoms of dyspnea, age, and oxygen therapy were the most important factors influencing the length of hospital stay. Thus, physicians and nurses should prioritize the use of oxygen therapy for patients, especially the elderly ones with the symptoms of dyspnea, in order to accelerate the recovery of the patients, and consequently reduce the duration of hospitalization.

Introduction & Objective: Patients suffering from a major trauma such as burn, have a high risk of infection that is attributed to decline of their immune response. Nonspecific immune stimulators have been used experimentally to improve the patients' immune status. Immune-stimulatory effects of levamisole have been cited in literatures.Materials & Methods: This study is conducted to assess the efficacy of levamisole on improvement and duration of hospitalization of burn patients in university-affiliated burn center in Yasuj, southwest Iran. Sixty-one thermal burned patients were randomly allocated into two groups. The case group (29 patients) received levamisole 3mg/kg weekly (one mg/kg) every other day, and the control group received vitamin C every other day as a placebo.Both groups had received routine burn treatments.Results: The eschar peeling time was 19.14 days in group A and 23.13 Days in group B. Complete wound healing in group A was on 27.72 days, while was on 32.87 days in group B. Statistical analysis of the data using T test showed that the differences are significant (p<0.0001).Conclusions: Levamisole as a non-specific immune stimulator can be used to enhance the immune status of burn patients which in turn improves the patients recovery time.

Introduction: Nowadays, as many of the problems confronting kidney transplantation have been solved, the number of operations has increased dramatically. So, resource utilization and financial issues have been cited as a new problem for transplantation centres. This study was done to find and assess the factors which can reduce the hospitalization period, while this factor claims the biggest share of the total cost of the treatment process.Material and Methods: In this retrospective study, done in kidney transplantation word of Imam Reza Hospital, the medical history of 170 kidney transplantation recipients and. donors, whose operations were performed between 2000 and 2002, were studied. Collected information of recipient's characteristics included gender, age, reason for kidney failure, weight, height, blood group, dialysis period, transplantation history, immunosuppressant regimes, complications after operation, and hospitalization after the first discharge due to transplantation operation complications; and for the donors, age, sex and blood group of the donor and the type of donor (cadaver or living) and the relationship between the recipients and the donors were gathered in a questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive statistics and T-test.Results: A mong all pre-transplant variables only length of dialysis before transplantation and the relationship between donors and recipients were found to be independently significant in predicting the increased hospitalization period and consequently charges.Conclusion: It is shown that by reducing the waiting time and performing more operations on relative donors and recipients, we can significantly decrease hospitalization period and as a result the cost of treatment.

Background: Poisoning is one of the most important medical emergencies. In recent years, prevalence of poisoning with opioids and stimulants, such as amphetamines, especially among young people is rising. In this study we investigated demographic factors, duration of hospitalization, costs of hospitalization, and cause of death in patients intoxicated with amphetamines and opioids.Methods: This study was a prospective descriptive– analysis study. The sampeling was census of patients intoxicated with amphetamines and opioids alone or combined, who reffered to toxicology ward of Aliasghar hospital, Iran.Findings: During 6 months, among 2325 patients who referred to toxicology ward, 542 patients (23.3%) consumed amphetamines (98 patients used opioids, 419 patients used amphetamines, and 25 patients used both of them). The mean age of patients in three groups was not significantly different.Most patients were male in all three groups. The most route of consumption was orally in opioid group (74.5%) and inhalation in amphetamine group (42.9%). The most cause of poisoning was intentional.Vital signs in the admission time in the three groups were normal, but in the amphetamine group, the average of heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate and blood pressure was slightly higher than opioid group.4 patients were died totally and the outcome was not significantly different between groups.The mean age of died patients was sigmificantly higher than two alive patients. The duration of hospitalization was higher in patients who died.Conclusion: According to our results intoxication with amphetamines and opioids was seen in young men more than other groups. Therefor control and prevention of consumption of opioids or amphetamines in this this group is an important way to reduce this kind of intoxication.

Background and Objectives: Burns is one of the most common and potentially dangerous public health problems. Burn patients' hospitalization facilitates the provision of medical services. However, prolonging the length of hospital stay can not only impose an economic burden, but also cause various infections in patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the factors affecting hospitalization length in burn patients admitted to Sina Hospital as burn referral hospital in Northwest of Iran. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the medical records of burn patients, who were admitted to Sina Hospital in Tabriz during 2018, were included. Data collection was performed, using a goalbased researcher checklist. Data were analyzed, using Stata 16 software and through quantile regression modeling. Results: The total number of hospitalized burn patients was 1586 of whom 998 (62. 3%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 25. 5 ± 22. 9 years. Burns occurred more often in summer (30. 5%) and at home (n=1246, 78. 6%). The median length of hospitalization was 8 days (95% CI: 7. 34-8. 57). Single (P = 0. 010) and illiterate patients (P = 0. 022) had a longer hospitalization length. The lower the Glasgow coma score at the beginning of hospitalization, the longer hospital stay seemed to grow (P = 0. 034). Patients with burns on face (P = 0. 037), head and neck (P <0. 001) and back of the trunk (P = 0. 031) had longer hospital stays, respectively. Conclusion: Glasgow coma score, burns on the face, neck and back were identified as effective clinical signs on hospitalization length of stay amongst burn patients. Considering these symptoms in the triage of burn patients, providing quality treatment and care services to manage these symptoms can reduce the length of hospital stay and ultimately lead to a reduction in social and economic costs for patients and society.

Objective: Hyperemesis gravidarum (HEG) is a debilitating illness affecting 0.3- 2% of pregnant women. It is characterized by continuous vomiting, dehydration, ketosis and muscle weakness. Conservative measures are not effective in severe cases. In these conditions, prednisolone therapy has been used, but yet there is no consensus on the therapy. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of prednisolone therapy in control of symptoms in women with HEG.Subjects and Methods: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted on women with HEG who were admitted at Ahvaz University`s hospitals from April 2006 to March 2008. Initially, they were divided in two (Prednisolone and placebo) groups. The prednisolone group was administered oral daily prednisolone (20 mg bid) until improved, and then tapered off over a few weeks, while the control group was given a placebo (multivitamin) with the same manner. All women also received promethazine, metoclopramide, intravenous fluids with electrolytes and vitamin supplements (B1, B6).Results: finally, 54 women in two groups (steroid: 28, placebo: 26) were analyzed. The mean age in both groups at admission was about 22 years. The mean gestational age at randomization was 10.7 (±2.3) weeks in the prednisolone group and 8.4 (±1.7) weeks in the placebo group. Among prednisolone group only 10 (35.71%) women versus 15 (57.68%) women in the placebo group needed hospital cares for women more than one week (P=0.18). Severe vomiting was seen only in 4 (14%) patients in the prednisolone group compared with 12 (46%) in the placebo group (P=0.01). Nineteen women (73%) in the placebo, compared with 12(50%) in the prednisolone group, were readmitted for hyperemesis (P=0.03). After one week, ptyalism was seen in 6 (6.12) in the prednisolone group versus in one (1.4) in placebo group (P=0.59).Conclusion: Prednisolone therapy is useful in resolution of symptoms in women with hyperemesis gravidarum. Further study with a larger size is recommended.

Background and Objective: One of the problems of premature infants is oral muscles insufficiency and inadequacy of oral-feeding skills at birth. Use of supportive oral interventions such as olfactory stimulation can facilitate this increasing challenge in neonatal intensive care unit. This study aimed to check the effect of olfactory stimulation with breast milk smell on the duration of feeding transitional time from gavage to oral feeding in premature infants.Materials and Method: In this randomized clinical trial study, 92 premature infants with the gestational age of less than 33 weeks hospitalized in neonatal intensive-care units of Valiasr and Jame Zanan hospitals in Tehran, Iran, during April to September 2013 were enrolled using available sampling method. They were randomly divided into 2 groups of 46, control and intervention (received mother milk odor during gavage periods) groups. A researcher-made checklist including demographic and primary (transitional feeding time, weighting, first breast feeding time, hospital stay) variables was used. The data were analyzed using independent t and Mann-Whitney tests via SPSS16 software.Results: Olfactory stimulation of premature infants significantly reduced the feeding transitional time and length of hospitalization more in intervention group (11.20±3.23 and 14.65±3.57 days, respectively) compared to control group (21.65±6.04 and 26.20 ± 6.50 days, respectively) (P<0.001 for both). Starting the first breast-feeding from mother's breast was done more effectively in a shorter time in intervention group, too (P<0.001).Conclusion: According to reducing the gavage to oral feeding transitional time, training this simple and low-cost method to mothers can be effective in improving the quality of feeding in premature infants.

One of the most important of mental health problems is care and management of psychiatric patients. In order to assess, effective factors on duration of stay on hospitalized patients a study has done in Razi psychiatric center. This study has done in retrospective-descriptive way. The results of this study showed, there is no relationship between factors such as; age, sex, place of birth and residence, occupational situation, source of reference and kind of treatment with length of stay in hospital. Moreover, this study suggested patients with schizophrenic disorders, had longer stay than patients with Mood Disorders and other mental disorders (P<0.05). Besides, patients with previous recurrent admit, longer duration of illness, comorbidity (Physical or Mental) had longer stay (P<0.05). Single and divorced patients had longer stay than married patients (P<0.05) and patients under insurance policy stayed more time than other patients.