Search results

This study aims to explore the challenges of providing primary health care (PHC) to Afghan immigrants in Tehran as an important global human right issue.

In this exploratory study, a total of 25 purposively selected PHC providers, including physicians, psychologists and midwives, were approached for face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, lasting 30 min on average. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

The most common challenges of providing PHC to Afghan immigrants were categorized at individual, organizational and societal levels. Communication barriers and socioeconomic features emerged at the individual level. The organizational challenges included mainly the lack of insurance coverage for all immigrants and the lack of a screening system upon the immigrants’ arrival from the borders. At the societal level, the negative attitudes toward Afghan immigrants were causing a problematic challenge.

The main limitation was the possibility that only health-care professionals with particular positive or negative perspectives about immigrants enter into the study, because of the voluntary nature of participation.

Findings can help policymakers adopt evidence-informed strategies for facilitating PHC provision and improving the access to health care in immigrants as a global human right concern.

This study alerts about undesirable consequences of certain attitudes and behaviors of the society toward immigrant health.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies conducted in PHC centers in Tehran Province that explores the challenges of providing PHC to Afghan immigrants.

This study aims to predict the behavior of donors to give to the health sector compared with other sectors in Shiraz city, South Iran, using the revised theory of planned behavior (TPB).

This was a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. A standard questionnaire, which comprising 32 items, was used to survey 277 donors affiliated with various charitable associations in the city of Shiraz, South of Iran, in 2018. Participants were selected using stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques. The authors used a revised TPB, a general model to predict and explain behavior across various types of behaviors and predict behavior based on an individual’s attitudes and beliefs. This model was used to examine the influence of eight social-psychological variables (attitude, perceived behavioral control [PBC], subjective norm, descriptive norm, moral norm, past behavior, intention behavior, self-reported) on an individual’s intention to donate to health sector charity. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 22.0.

The score of all constructs of TPB in the health sector was significantly higher than in the non-health sector (P < 0.001), except for the PBC. This indicates that it does not influence the donors’ behavioral intention in selecting of charitable activity domains (e.g. health and non-health). The constructs of the moral norm, descriptive norm and past behavior in the health sector donors; and the constructs of attitude, moral norms and the variables of the annual income, and work experience in the non-health sector donors were identified as significant predictors of donors’ intention behavior. Moreover, attitude, moral norm, descriptive norm, past behavior, male gender and the annual income were the significant predictors of donors’ intention to give to health charity initiatives.

One of the most important mechanisms to compensate for the shortage of resources of the health system is the use of donors’ participation capacity. However, different donors act differently in selecting charitable activity domains, including the health sector and non-health sector (e.g. school-building donors’ association, house-building donors’ association, city-building donors’ association, library-building donors’ association, etc.). To attract donors’ participation in the health sector, some interventions to change the behavioral intention of donors towards the health sector through constructs of TPB should be taken.

Leadership is the ability to influence, guide and encourage employees to achieve organizational goals. Leadership has a significant role in organizations’ success or failure. Thus, this paper aims to develop a model to elucidate leadership practices in the Iranian health-care organizations (HCOs).

Qualitative approach was used in this study due to its explorative nature. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 key managers and 30 professionals working at different HCOs. Inductive analysis was carried out using the grounded theory approach to develop an initial leadership model for HCOs. The proposed model subsequently was verified by an experts’ panel.

The proposed leadership model emerged from the Iranian HCOs encompasses six main categories: leader, followers, high-ups and peers, context, processes and outcomes. Leader, followers and contexts as main categories did also have further sub-categories.

Study findings are cautiously transferrable as it reflects the Iranian context. While the model was verified, it might still benefit from more and diverse views.

This model can be used by health-care policymakers and managers for improving managers’ leadership competencies and practices and enhancing health outcomes through motivating and mobilizing health-care resources toward achieving organizational goals.

This study aims to give an answer for “what is the current status of leadership in Iranian HCOs?” and “how can we reinforce the strengths and address the weaknesses?”