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Background: It is believed that smoking is the gateway to use substances and illicit drugs. Due to an increase in smoking among students, we thought there is a need for more efficient ways to prevent smoking among the young and adolescents. Objectives: This study aimed to develop an extended version of the Health Belief Model (HBM) with elements of Health Literacy (HL) to assess whether an educational intervention could be effective in smoking prevention based on this new development in 2016. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study performed on 130 students living in dormitories of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran, who were recruited and assigned to experimental and control groups (each containing 65 students). The experimental group received six electronic educational sessions via telegram application while the control group received no intervention. The data were collected using a questionnaire containing items on HBM, smoking preventive behaviors, and a measure of HL (the HL inventory for adults-HELIA). The questionnaire was completed at three time-points: before, immediately and three months after the intervention. Data analyses were done using analysis of variance, Friedman and Mann-Whitney U Tests. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: Before the intervention, there was no significant difference in the demographic and background variables, the underlying level of knowledge, preventive behaviors, HL, and all the constructs of the model between the groups (P > 0.05). After the intervention, comparing two groups showed that the mean scores of knowledge, preventive behaviors, HL, and all components of the model changed significantly i n t he e xperimental g roup c ompared t o t he c ontrol g roup ( P < 0 . 0 5). T he mean a nd s tandard deviation of adoption of smoking preventive behaviors at the beginning of the study in smoking and non-smoking students in the

Background:Investigating the prevalence of diseases and causes of hospitalization of Iranian pilgrims in Iraq can be helpful for healthcare programmers in scheduling a healthy and joyful trip for pilgrims and reducing their mortality and morbidity.Objectives:The main purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of Iranian pilgrims’ referral cases to Karbala and Najaf hospitals in Iraq during a 5-month period in 2012.Patients and Methods:In this cross-sectional study, medical records of all patients referred to Iraqi hospitals from Iranian clinics during a 5-month period from 16 January 2012 until 14 June 2012 was recorded. A checklist, including demographic data and diagnostic causes were prepared and completed by general practitioners. Then, the completed forms were checked and delivered to health surveillance supervisors.Results:A total of 177 referral cases from Iranian clinics to Iraqi hospitals were recorded in 5 months. Most of these referrals were due to cardiovascular diseases with 38.6%, then comes trauma with 26.55%, and finally renal failure in need of dialysis with 12.43%. About 80.2% of the patients were discharged, 13% of them were sent to Iran, and 6.2% died. Around 90% of deaths were due to heart diseases.Conclusions:Considering the high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and fractures in Iranian pilgrims, the necessity of self-care education to diminish such rates is substantial.