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Education is a human right and access to high quality education is key to sustainable socioeconomic development. Improving the quality of higher education institutes is essential for generating the productive human resources. Assessing the quality of higher education from the students’ perspective can be considered a crucial factor in the monitoring of service quality in universities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of educational services in a higher education institute, the Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), in the west of Iran.

A multistage sampling method was used to select 346 students from the KUMS, who were enrolled in the second semester of the academic year 2015-2016. The SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to gather data on students’ perceptions and their expectations about the quality of educational services. The authors used a statistical significance level of 0.05 to examine the gap between the students’ expectations and their perceptions of service quality in five dimensions, namely tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, empathy and assurance.

The results showed that there was a negative service quality gap in all five dimensions. The overall mean score of students’ expectations and their perceptions was 3.19±0.44 and 2.4±0.45, respectively. The score gap between the overall mean score of perceptions and expectations of students was −0.79, which was statistically significant (p<0.0001). The highest and lowest quality gaps were related to the assurance (−0.84) and tangible (−0.70) dimensions, respectively.

The study indicated that the quality of educational services provided in the KUMS did not meet students’ expectations in five dimensions of service quality. Thus, it warrants further investigations to determine how to improve the quality of educational services in higher education institutes such as the KUMS.

Appropriate access to formally-trained health workers for people living in rural and underdeveloped areas is a continuing challenge worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of formally-trained health workers to practice in underdeveloped areas and its main determinants among medical students in the western provinces of Iran.

A total of 753 medical students from four provinces in western Iran (Kermanshah, Ilam, Lorestan and Kurdistan) were surveyed cross-sectionally in 2017. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data on sociodemographic characteristics, willingness to practice in underdeveloped areas, intrinsic (e.g. desire to help others and self-interest in medicine) and extrinsic (e.g. the high income of physicians and social prestige) motivations of the study population. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify the main determinants of willingness to practice in underdeveloped areas among medical students after their graduation.

The results indicated that 58.3 percent of students were willing to practice in underdeveloped areas. While 59 percent of the study population had a strong extrinsic motivation to study medicine, the remaining 41 percent of the study population had a strong intrinsic motivation to study medicine. The logistic regression results indicated that low parental professional and educational status, an experience of living in rural areas and having strong intrinsic motivation were associated with greater willingness to practice in underdeveloped areas.

This is the first study to investigate the willingness to practice in underdeveloped areas and its main determinants among medical students in the west of Iran.

This study aims to present a review of topics, conceptual models and methodologies in research on Iranian school principals over the past four decades.

The study adopted a descriptive quantitative form of a systematic review of research to analyze topics, conceptual models and methodologies employed in 565 studies published by Iranian scholars in the national and international databases.

The content analysis of the studies revealed the increasing interest of the Iranian scholars in the two topical foci, namely, the school leadership models and principal profile, with a focus on the direct-effects (Model B) and the antecedent-effects (Model A). The evidence also suggests the disinclination of the researchers to study leadership concerning student learning outcomes. The most frequently used school leadership model in the Iranian schools has been transformational leadership, while the distributive/collaborative and instructional leadership studies were few. The scholars have mostly relied on a survey-based quantitative research approach, using correlation analysis techniques.

The findings suggest that despite the increasing global acceptance of school leadership, its implementation in practice is inevitably shaped by the institutional policies and cultural values of different societies.

The findings of this study strengthen the supposition that the differences in school leadership across societies are influenced by various cultural and contextual factors.

This paper is the first systematic review of the empirical studies that present insight into topics, conceptual models and methodologies in research on school principals in Iran.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of audit features, including audit quality, audit fees and auditor tenure on money laundering in Iranian stock companies.

This research is descriptive-correlational and applied in terms of purpose. To evaluate the audit features, variables including audit quality, audit fee and auditor tenure were used. The statistical population of this study includes all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and the research period from 2012 to 2018. A sample of 150 companies was selected by the screening method. In this study, logistic regression and Eviews 10 software were used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

The results showed that variables including audit quality, normal audit fee and auditor tenure have a significant effect on money laundering.

Observing money laundering rules and regulations for businesses involves is a critical issue. In auditing the financial statements of the business units subject to these laws, the auditor reviews their actions to obtain reasonable assurance of guaranteeing the money laundering laws, evaluates their effectiveness and gains approval of managers regarding observing laundering regulations. In this regard, the auditor is required to report definitive or suspected money-laundering cases or its certain or suspected evidence to the relevant authorities. Although the law prohibits the auditor from disclosing such matters to the client, it is not necessary. It seems that even if the auditors perform non-audit functions, they should report money laundering or suspicious operations and transactions.

Mental health is an inevitable and vital dimension when it comes to providing a global definition for the appropriate health status. This highlights the importance of investigating factors influencing utilization and out-of-pocket payments (OOP) for mental health services. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to assess the determinants of the utilization and OOP for psychiatric healthcare in Iran.

A total of 39,864 households were included in this cross-sectional study. Data on the utilization and OOP for psychiatric healthcare as well as all their determinants (e.g. wealth index of households, geographical area, household size, etc.) were extracted from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). The HIES was conducted by the Statistical Center of Iran in 2016. A zero-inflated Tobit model was used to identify the main factors affecting utilization and OOP for psychiatric healthcare utilization.

The average of utilization and OOP for psychiatric services was found to be 14.67 times per 1,000 households and $7.783 per month for service users, respectively. There were significant positive relationships between income and utilization (p=0.0002) and OOP (p<0.0001) for psychiatric services. Significant negative associations were found between the number of illiterate people in the household and OOP (coefficient=−1.56) and utilization (coefficient=−0.2002) for psychiatric services. Utilization and OOP for psychiatric services were statistically significantly higher among households with higher wealth status.

Despite the higher rate of mental disorders, the utilization of psychiatric services in Iran is very low. Due to financial barriers and insufficient insurance coverage, high socioeconomic status (SES) households utilize more psychiatric services than low-SES households. Thus, the integration of mental health services in public health programs is required to improve the utilization of psychiatric services in Iran.

This study uses a phenomenology method to investigate the experiences of married Muslim women while having romantic conversations via online dating sites during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen participants were selected via purposive sampling, and the data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. The results confirm that resistance to Islamic marriage limitations is the underlying reason accounting for Muslim women's romantic chat. However, “premarital experiences in virtual space” and “chat as a remedy for loneliness” create the causal conditions of romantic chat, and “experience of family restrictions” and a “sense of freedom” provides the foundation for an online romantic chat. It is worth noting that those who voice a sense of “unhappy marriage” and “husband's sexual coldness” are more likely to turn to sex chat during the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences of digital romantic conversations for married Muslim women are “chat addiction” and “feeling a sense of betrayal.”

Universities and higher education institutes are key pillars of all societies, as the result of their important roles in education, research and training of human resources. Nevertheless, similar to other social structures, universities need to be prepared for natural disasters. This study aims to measure and analyze the level of earthquake preparedness in a higher education institute in Tehran, Iran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 in a higher education institute through three stages of tool, namely, development, preparedness evaluation and strength–weakness–opportunity–threat analysis. The valid and reliable tool was applied for assessment of college preparedness through a field survey. Factors affecting the obtained level of preparedness were categorized into internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) factors to decide on an appropriate strategy for promoting the preparedness level.

Content validity index and content validity ratio of the tool were 88 and 98.85 per cent, respectively. The reliability of the tool was measured to be 98 per cent using the kappa coefficient. The level of preparedness was estimated to be weak. The final value of the matrix of internal and external factors was higher than average, which can be improved in the form of strength–opportunity strategy.

It is highly suggested to allocate a specific budget for improvement and evaluation of preparedness measures in all parts of education systems. In addition, making the preparedness measures as the mandatory duty for educational structures can be considered by decision-makers and managers at the national and local levels.

The study aimed to measure scientific and social impacts of Iranian researchers' “Top Papers” in clinical medicine using citation and altmetric indicators.

In this applied descriptive-analytical study, it used scientometric analysis. A total of 166 “Top Papers” of Iranian researchers in clinical medicine category of Web of Science (WoS) database including “Highly Cited Papers” and “Hot Papers” published between 2009 and 2019 were used. Overall, 29 indicators and their data were extracted from WoS, Scopus, ResearchGate (RG) and PlumX in March 2020.

The results showed that there exists a positive correlation between the number of citations in WoS, Scopus, RG, PubMed and Crossref. In addition, it was found that there existed a positive correlation between the received citations by articles and altmetric indicators. According to the results, there is a strong correlation between RG Research Interest and citation impact. The correlation analysis on the Plum Analytics categories including “Usage”, “Capture”, “Mention”, “Social Media” and “Citation” showed the correlations between five dimensions of impact were positive and significant. The results have led the authors to think more about new metrics that can response to new developments in the new information areas.

There are limitations to access altmetric.com in Iran and cannot be used easily. On the other hand, because of considering 24 indicators, authors had to investigate only a sample of 166 top papers from Iranian researchers to present the detailed results. About nature of altmetric indicators, although they reflect the nonacademic impact of articles alongside bibliographic indicators, they still cannot be a complete representative of the influence of their owners.

This study can indicate a practical application appropriate for the future study. It would be valuable to further examine how social academic platforms construct images of impact of research and how this impacts the social impact of the university as a mission. This study suggests that social media attention to academic research can be much greater than what is shown in traditional indicators such as citation.

This study examines 29 indicators from four platforms including RG, WoS, Scopus and PlumX, simultaneously and measures the relationship among them.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected many different aspects of people’s lives around the world, including household food security. This study aims to investigate the food security status and its determinants, with emphasis on perceived social support among the Iranian population during the epidemic..

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,871 Iranian adults by social media in all provinces of the country. Demographic and socioeconomic information, household food security status and perceived social support status were assessed by the validated questionnaires. Data was analyzed by statistical package for the social sciences version 22.0, with one-way ANOVA, Chi-square and multinomial logistic regression tests.

The prevalence of food security among the studied population was 55.2%. The results indicated that perceived social support plays a protective role on food security [odds ratio (OR) = 1.07, confidence interval (CI) = 1.06, 1.09, P-value < 0.001]. Reduced income during the epidemic [OR = 0.29, CI = 0.17, 0.47, P-value < 0.001] and presence of an old person (>65 years old) in the household [OR = 1.72, CI = 1.14, 2.60, P-value < 0.05], were significantly higher among moderate to severe food insecure group than food-secure group. More monthly income [OR = 0.28, CI = 0.13, 0.57, P-value < 0.001] and homeownership [OR = 1.83, CI = 1.22, 2.75, P-value < 0.05] were also predictors of food security status.

The development of supportive strategies which act immediately can protect vulnerable people against the consequences of the epidemic, including food insecurity. Long-term planning should also be considered to improve society’s resistance against such disasters.

Social support is a significant factor in the life of homeless people, as it helps them meet their life challenges more efficiently and increases the likelihood of return to a normal life. Social support plays a different role in homeless women’s life, as gender culture often causes them to be exposed to more risks. The purpose of this paper is to identify homeless people’s access to social support from their network members, with a comparison between men and women.

In this study, a survey method was used with an administrated questionnaire. Participants were recruited from among the homeless people (men and women) who used the municipal social services in shelters and social service centers in Tehran. The main variables in this study included frequency of contact, social support, and gender.

The results have shown significant differences between homeless men and homeless women in terms of frequency of contact and receipt of social support. Homeless women contacted their network members more often than did homeless men and also received more support. There seems to be a strong correlation between the receipt of social support and women’s greater ability for social communication, as well as with traditional culture, which considers women to be weak and dependent so that they receive more support compared with men. The weakness of social support, especially among homeless men, requires serious attention; however, homeless women are not in a favorable situation either.

The social networks of homeless people who usually live on the streets and in public places without permanent shelter are weak because of various reasons, including poverty, addiction, immigration, and divorce. The weakness of social support leads to an escalation of their vulnerabilities. Thus, it is necessary, in social policy and services, to improve the social network of high-risk people such as homeless people, which would help the rehabilitation process and reduce the probability of exposure to harm.