Family planning knowledge, attitudes and practices of males are essential for needs assessment in order to reform the local health centers. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION was used to reveal the men's disinclination in family planning in Bushehr Port. A series of 16 GROUP DISCUSSIONs (with participation of 100 males and females) in two age categories (30 yr. & >30 yr. for women and <35 yr. & >35 yr. for men) were held. The cultural restrictions for male involvement in family planning, disparity in responsibilities for contraception, women's unawareness in their rights in family planning were the major concerns. Unmet needs of men for information, counseling and health services were noted as barriers to the expansion of male involvement. It is recommended that men should be treated as a specific target GROUP in family planning programs and male services through the existing health systems should be encouraged. Reproductive health care providers also should be trained to adapt to counseling men in family planning.

Background: Oral contraceptive pills effectiveness is lower in actual use than in clinical trials. The views of a GROUP of married Iranian women were sought as a step toward improving the enhanced use of contraceptive pills.Methods: Two FOCUS GROUPs of current pill users (n=13) and two FOCUS GROUPs of women not currently taking the pills (n=14) were held. Leaders trained facilitators; themes were identified from line-by-line analysis of transcripts.Results: The majority of the participants were primary school graduates with a mean age of 34 years. Knowledge about mechanisms of action was low; some women wanted more information. Both users and non-users recognized positive and negative characteristics of contraceptive pills. For non-users, physical and emotional sideeffects were the most important; and anecdotal information from their social network was more important. They tended to trust more traditional methods. For users, their own experience and more reality-based understanding of side-effects mitigated concerns about side-effects. They also felt that health clinic staff had a negative attitude toward the pills. A stronger expression of self-efficacy seemed to be associated with more positive attitudes toward oral contraceptive pills.Conclusion: Although Iran has had a government-funded family planning program since 1990, and pills are the single most popular modern contraceptive method, women who take OCPs can provide important information that could increase effective health education about their use.

Background and purpose: Rational use of drugs remains a problem in Iran. Polypharmacy, overuse of antibiotic, misuse and overuse of injections, short consulting time and poor patient compliance are common patterns of irrational use of drugs in Eastern Azarbydjan - Iran. Concerning the promotion of rational use of drugs, this study aimed the effect of educational intervention as interactive GROUP DISCUSSION on prescribing behavior of Tabriz Northwest physicians. Methods: Fifty one general physicians from private and public sectors in Northwest of Tabriz were selected randomly and their prescriptions were analyzed. A questionnaire with 8 close questions was completed for each prescription to investigate all aspects of prescribing patterns. By a professional software the information of the prescriptions was analyzed and drug prescribing indicators such as percentage of patients receiving antibiotics, glucocorticoids and other drug GROUPs were determined. The method of intervention included FOCUS GROUP and interactive GROUP DISCUSSIONs. FOCUS GROUP was built in GROUP of health professionals to collect training material using pre-intervention results for interactive GROUP DISCUSSION. The physicians were divided into two GROUPs of control and intervention GROUPs. Following pre-intervention study the physicians of intervention GROUP were discussed and trained in one-day interactive GROUP DISCUSSION course using pre-intervention data and educational materials obtained from the FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION. Results: The results of pre-intervention study showed that the average number of drugs in each prescription was 3.82. The percentage of patients receiving antibiotics, corticosteroids and injections were 40.81, 25.94 and 58.04 %, respectively. The results of this survey show great differences from WHO and international standards. Following the intervention the indicators were similar in both intervened and non-intervened GROUPs and also were same as the pre-intervention results. Conclusion: The results of this study show that a very close and effective method of training program as an interactive GROUP DISCUSSION has no beneficial effects on improving rational prescription behavior of general physicians involved in this study. To promote rational prescription the underlying factors must be considered more.

Work-related stressors are common in nursing and cause fatigue and low work performance. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION was used to reveal the opinions of nurses about stressors and stress-reduction measures. A series of eight GROUP DISCUSSIONs with participation of 56 nurses was held. Inadequate drugs and facilities, not standardized equipments, uncomfortable hospital environment, fair of transmission of infectious diseases, not accessibility of doctors and unfriendly atmosphere were reported as common stressors. Some GROUP emphasized a need for counseling and classroom-based educations to cope with job stressors; standard facilities, good professional working relationships and adequate support services by hospital nursing offices and Nursing Association were mentioned as effective measures for stress reduction in the hospital setting. In conclusion, stressor is common in nursing environment and organized stress management programs for hospital nurses are encouraged.

Objective: the study sought the point of view, attitude and risk factors of domestic violence against women who have experienced it.Method: for the purpose of the study a qualitative method was chosen and two FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONs were held by attending 9-10 women from south esteems of Tehran in each session. Data were noted and taped, then coded and results were extracted.Findings: women mentioned three aspects of spouse abuse (sexual, emotional, and physical) and reported that emotional aspect is the most important one. They mentioned that majority of women who experienced spouse abuse have low self-esteem, no family and social support, or they fear facing problems after divorce. They claimed that courts are the most important sources of support for women which now are not acting strong enough.Conclusion: spouse abuse has different aspects and this problem needs multidimensional studies, however the best solution seems to be revising laws in support of women.

Background: Social issues have short‑ or long‑ term as well as positive or negative effects on health systems. Identifying and analyzing events and trends help managers to make the vision and strategic planning. The purpose of this study is to identify the social trends and their impacts on the future of the Iranian health system. Methods: FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION (FGD) was used to collect the data in 2017‑ ‑ 18. The participants were selected through purposive sampling and the snowball method. The DISCUSSIONs were all written and recorded with the consent of the participants. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The participants believed that the most important social trends affecting future of health system in Iran are increase health literacy, demographic transition, nutritional pattern, migration and urbanization, marginal settlement, rising unemployment, and increased usage of personal cars. Conclusions: The increase in health problems, healthcare costs, and mortality because of social behaviors and trends are considered as threats to the health system. Therefore, policymakers should reduce their negative effects by taking into account and FOCUSing on these trends and making appropriate plans.

The concept and problems of reproductive health is emerging as an essential need for health development. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION was used to reveal the opinions of the parents, teachers, and students (mid and high schools) about educational needs in reproductive health. A series of 24 GROUP DISCUSSIONs with participation of 162 persons (64 students, 50 teachers and 48 parents) was held. All the participants noted to a true need in education of puberty health in order to provide essentials for preadolescent students to adopt the psycho- and somatic changes of puberty. However, a few fathers and a GROUP of mothers believed that education of family planning is not suitable for students. A need for education of AIDS and marital problems for students were the major concerns in all GROUPs. The female students emphasized a need for programming counseling in pre-marital period. In conclusion, essentials in puberty health, family planning, AIDS and marital problems should be provided in mid- and high schools in order to narrow the knowledge gap of the students.

Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well - being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes.Improvement of the women's health status not only good health services, but also their cooperation. Information about the importance and details of health care are necessary to ensure the best individual cooperation. Thus education is one of the most important factors of reproductive health.In order to plan an appropriate and effective educational program, assessment of information's, insights and behaviors of the target GROUP are needed. In this project that was implemented through FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION (FGD), insights of female medical students about reproductive health have been evaluated.Twelve GROUP (6 students in each GROUP) of female medical students were selected for interviewing. A questionnaire was designed about reproductive health, and its questions were discussed by the students in GROUP settings.We concluded that although the students' insight about reducing uncontrolled population was acceptable but their information's about family planning, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/ADIS were not significant.Most of the students believed that today reproductive health education is neither enough nor appropriate, so they could not be good messengers of reproductive and demographic bases are more attend in these educational university programs and unfortunately operational aspects of reproductive health, family planning, sexually transmitted diseases and their ways of transmission and prophylactic methods are less considered.It seems that taking into consideration the difficult medical and paramedical lessons and the high expectation of parents - young people are only expected to spend their time studying- and amount of time spent by young people on studying, in comparison to their free time they do not have enough time to participate in social gatherings. Therefore young people have less social skills and there is an urgent need to review the training curricula and the time period of studying, so that the students of this country acquire life skills during their training period.In view of the fact that marriage is delayed and because of our cultural background, today we need some pains of action for answering to young peoples; needs. Also for planning the best such actions, there is a need for DISCUSSIONs and recommendation of specialists and experts, in addition to finding strategies to facilitating marriage by the Government.