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This study aims to describe knowledge of Canada’s Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act (GSDOA) and take home naloxone (THN) training and kit possession among people being released from provincial correctional facilities in British Columbia.

The authors conducted surveys with clients of the Unlocking the Gates Peer Health Mentoring program on their release. The authors compared the characteristics of people who had and had not heard of the GSDOA and who were in possession of a THN kit.

In this study, 71% people had heard of the GSDOA, and 55.6% were in possession of a THN kit. This study found that 99% of people who had heard of the GSDOA indicated that they would call 911 if they saw an overdose. Among people who perceived themselves to be at risk of overdose, 28.3% did not have a THN kit. Only half (52%) of participants had a mobile phone, but 100% of those with a phone said they would call 911 if they witnessed an overdose.

The authors found that people with knowledge of the GSDOA were likely to report that they would call 911 for help with an overdose. Education about the GSDOA should be a standard component of naloxone training in correctional facilities. More than one in four people at risk of overdose were released without a naloxone kit, highlighting opportunities for training and distribution. Access to a cellphone is important in enabling calls to 911 and should be included in discharge planning.

Health is one of the most basic human rights. Self-medication not only results in many risks, complications and mortalities but also remains a massive economic burden on governments’ pharmaceutical budgets, insurance companies and the general population. The importance of self-medication as one of the worldwide health problems, this paper aims to investigate the extent of this problem and related factors in Sanandaj, Iran in 2018.

This cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted on 838 people who referred to pharmacies in Sanandaj, Iran in 2018. The subjects were selected in 10 pharmacies, 84 in each, randomly. A self-constructed questionnaire was used to collect information about demographic features, prevalence and reasons for self-medication. The data was analyzed statistically by SPSS software.

The results show a high prevalence of self-medication, 73.70 per cent among people who referred to the pharmacies in Sanandaj during 2018. There was a significant correlation between self-medication and occupation, education level, age groups, chronic disease, smoking or reasons to refer to pharmacies (p < 0.05). Analgesics, antibiotics; non-steroid anti-inflammatory, cold and gastrointestinal medicines were the most commonly used medicines by the subjects. People with headache, cold, infection, stomach pain, toothache and dysmenorrhea were more likely to act self-medication than people with other complaints. Among people who do self-medication, (85.60 per cent) had already experienced satisfactory results after using medicines. Mild symptoms of the disease (74.11 per cent), availability of medicines (72.98 per cent) and easy access to medicine supplies in pharmacies (71.35 per cent) are other reasons for self-medication.

In general, the study had some limitations. One of the limitations was related to the research period i.e. spring and summer. So, it is suggested to conduct studies in other seasons, too. Furthermore, as the time of self-medication was the past three months, there was a probability of recall bias.

The prevalence of self-medication in Sanandaj is high and alarming, implementing educational programs about this issue is extremely required. Health policymakers should take all necessary steps to tackle self-medication efficiently.

The purpose of this paper is to guide managers on business process reengineering (BPR) and automation projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector context.

This paper relies on a literature review and synthesis in the areas of leadership, BPR, change management, user resistance and power to propose a change management framework.

The paper argues for attention to be paid to the power relationships among various stakeholders. Stakeholder impact analysis is recommended to understand how change will impact stakeholders and shift power balances. It proposes that leadership and communication are essential for implementing change, especially given the particular cultural conditions of the UAE. Moreover, change should be a continuous process supported by communication.

As power and authority are very important elements of the UAE culture, future research should further examine the role of power in implementing organizational change in the UAE context.

This paper proposes a ten-step change management framework that adopts the latest thinking on change management to the UAE context.

Although change management is a well-established field, the body of knowledge that concentrates on the UAE organizational context is scant. This paper translates the latest thinking on change management to the UAE context (characterized by sensitivity to power issues and stakeholder impact) and proposes a practical framework for leading change in the UAE public sector context.

Currently, the health system is a treatment-oriented system focused on service providers. In this system, the main focus is on the health market, with little attention on insured. One way to get out of existing conditions is to empower the insured in order to involve them actively in maintaining and improving health. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This qualitative study was done using the content analysis method. Based on the purposive sampling method and theoretical saturation criterion, 24 individuals including 12 health insurance experts and 12 insured participated in the study in 2018. The semi-structured interview method was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA10 software.

Having analyzed the interviews, 750 codes were obtained. These codes were categorized into two categories of “insurance experts” and “insured” and ten subcategories of “informing and educating, cost reduction, intersectional activities, expectations from the insured, services package, access to services, inability to pay costs, participation, and expectations from the insurance organization.”

This qualitative study was conducted to assess and determine the effective strategies for empowering the insured under health insurance. The results of this study are helpful to the health insurance organizations and health decision makers to detect the effective ways to develop the quality of insurance services, improve the status of insured, and increase access to health care goods and services.