Purpose To respect the patients’ physical privacy, they should be provided with proper clothing that prevents the exposure of unnecessary parts of the body. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate patient satisfaction upon wearing customized, high-coverage, procedure-specific dresses. Design/methodology/approach New designs of clothing adapted for different kinds of procedures, and offering a good coverage of the body and easy access to the required parts were compared with regular patient clothing. Patients from six different wards of a university hospital filled out a questionnaire inquiring about general and demographic variables, and patient satisfaction was evaluated based on six main features of the clothing design. p<0.005 was considered as the level of statistical significance. Findings Overall, 256 patients were entered into the regular-design and new-design groups (n=128 in each). In Group 1 (regular design), the rate of dissatisfaction was about 98, 84, 84, 78, 77 and 38 percent for ease of wearing, comfort, design, material, coverage level and size, respectively. In Group 2 (new design), the highest satisfaction rates were associated with ease of wearing, size, coverage level, material, design and comfort as 93.7, 91.4, 89.9, 87.1, 86, and 80.5 percent, respectively. Originality/value The present study is the first to investigate customized patient clothing and demonstrated that these clothes can improve the patients’ satisfaction in terms of coverage, comfort, design and size.

Policymakers should consider policies that empower women, reduce gender inequality and provide social security to maximize the probability of women being healthy.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of knowledge, attitude and practice of medical team about suitable " Healthcare personnel (HCP) attire". Materials and methods: This is a descriptive study that was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and evaluated knowledge, attitude and performance of physicians and nurses about "Health care personnel (HCP) attire" by a questionnaire. In order to create the questionnaire a panel of experts’ reviews was set and a questionnaire was made through Focus group discussion (FGD). The Variables included age, gender, work experience, type of employees' time, type of jobs, education level, type of employee. Results: This study was conducted on 441 physicians and nurses who were working in Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The mean percent of KAP score was 72.6 ± 14.3. The score of the questionnaire in general was 14.91 ± 70.99 for knowledge, 73.5 ± 13.3 for attitude and 73.7 ± 17.1 for performance. Conclusion: According to this survey, the questionnaire score in the general knowledge, attitude and performance about the "Healthcare personnel (HCP) attire" is low.

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An Open Access PublisherPurpose of the study: To understand surgical outcomes, based on standardized tools, after surgery of lumbar spinal canal stenosis in patients aged 65 years and older. Methods: A cross-sectional study was undertaken in 58 elderly patients before and after surgery. Demographic data, procedures, perioperative comorbidities, preoperative and postoperative pain intensity, primary activities of daily living, quality of life, and fear avoidance were collected at baseline. All patients were followed up to 6 and 12 months after operation. Results: Following surgery, there was a significant reduction in the VAS scale (for pain severity) and fear avoidance beliefs (FAB) questionnaire scale (P<0.001), and a significant increase in the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) index and the Barthel Index for Activities of Daily Living (ADL), which assesses functional independence) (P<0.001). Implication: The present study suggests that surgery in elderly patients is effective for the treatment of spinal stenosis, in those patients who did not respond well to conservative treatment. Abstract