Iranian Journal of Medical Education

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  Introduction : Continuous evaluation of Islamic Thoughts courses and revising the course delivery methods are necessary to make the courses more efficient to meet the needs of the youth, and to transmit the Islamic values to the students. Due to the necessity of curriculum evaluation, this study aimed at determining the students’ attitude about the Islamic Thought courses.

  Methods: In a descriptive study, the population of students studying in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences in 2008-2009 was involved. Through census sampling, 549 students who had enrolled in Islamic Thoughts courses I and II, took part in the study and filled out a researcher made questionnaire. To analyze the data, in addition to descriptive statistics, chi-square, Kruskal Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U tests were employed to compare subjects’ viewpoints based on qualitative variables (nominative and ordinal).

  Results: The mean age of participants was 20.79 ± 2.59, and 68.9% (378) of the subjects were female. Findings indicated that 87.3% (479) of the students were satisfied with the Islamic Thoughts books, the related instructors, their positive effects on the students, and the university educational planning for these courses. Also, there was no significant difference between students’ opinions regarding their gender and study major.

  Conclusion : In spite of positive viewpoints of students toward various aspects of these courses, the negative points should also be acknowledged to eliminate the defects. Since students’ needs are changing, the books and educational methods should be also revised accordingly.

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Introduction: The relationship is a key concept in nursing and an integral part of patient care. Nursing students are one of the most influential individuals who directly communicate with patients for a long period of time, therefore proper relationship with patients is considered one of their important duties and a necessity for effective training and learning clinical cares. This study aimed to identify the factors affecting student-patient relationship from the viewpoints of nursing students. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2013. Ninety-one nursing students of Birjand university of Medical Sciences were selected through convenient sampling. Data were gathered through a researcher-made questionnaire consisted of six categories including: personal, social, professional, environmental, educational and clinical conditions of patients. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive and analytical statistics (independent t-tests, ANOVA, and Kruskal-Wallis). Results: The results showed that professional (4.02±0.71) and personal factors (3.45±0.46) were the most and the least important factors from the students’ perspective, respectively. A demographic comparison revealed a significant difference between the viewpoints of male and female students in terms of clinical (t=2.9, p=0.001) and social (t=-2.32, p=0.02) factors. Conclusion: The Results indicated that professional factors had the greatest effect on student-patient relationship. Thus health providers and educational managers should focus their efforts on modifying professional factors in order to improve student-patient relationship and thereby improve the quality of clinical education.