Introduction: Lack of research targeting non-adherence to cardiovascular medications in Russia prevents from developing effective interventions to improve adherence. The aim was to study medication adherence in patients with stable coronary artery disease in primary care. Material and methods: The study was conducted in a primary care setting of Moscow. Demography, medical history, pharmacotherapy data were obtained retrospectively from 386 coronary patients’ medical records. Medication adherence was measured by 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). A statistical analysis was performed using SPSS Statistics V16.0. Results and discussion: According to the results from MMAS-8, 188 (48.7%) coronary patients had high medication adherence, 135 (35.0%) – moderate, and 63 (16.3%) – low. By the dichotomous interpretation: 48.7% (n = 188) – were adherent, 51.3% (n = 198) – were non-adherent. These groups were similar in gender distribution, age, and medical history profile (p > 0.1 for all variables). Smokers prevailed in the non-adherent group (13.6 vs. 5.3%; p = 0.009). Both groups were equally prescribed beta-blockers, antiplatelets, and statins (p > 0.1 for all). Use of fixed dose combinations (11.7 vs. 5.6%; p = 0.048) and the number of pills taken (mean 5.64 ± 1.52 vs. 5.99 ± 1.62; p = 0.029) were associated with better adherence. Higher values of total cholesterol (mean 5.2 ± 1.4 vs. 4.7 ± 1.2 mmol/L; p < 0.001) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (mean 2.9 ± 1.2 vs. 2.4 ± 0.9 mmol/L; p < 0.001) were revealed in non-adherents. Subjects with suboptimal adherence visited general practitioners more frequently (median 5 vs. 3 visits; p = 0,003). Conclusion: Medication non-adherence in coronary outpatients exceeded 50%. High adherence was associated with more frequent use of fixed dose combinations and fewer pills taken by patient. Smoking and poorer control of blood lipids prevailed in non-adherents, who also caused higher load on general practitioners.

It is an indisputable fact that technology is a part of our lives. It is known that research and education technologies are concentrated. By examining the articles and dissertations published in the field, the scope, strengths and weaknesses of the studies were determined. An important gap has been filled in to guide researches what kind of studies may be needed in the future. Many studies for this purpose were found in the literature. However, since similar studies dealing with educational technologies are outdated, this study is considered important in terms of gathering current research trends and results. The aim of this study is to analyse the articles published in the Scopus database on educational technologies and instructional technologies, thematically and methodologically. The study was designed by adopting a case study from qualitative research models. The sample has not been determined for postgraduate dissertations to be included in the study, and it was aimed to reach the whole universe. In this context, all articles have been accessed through the library system of the university in the Scopus database included. The keywords ‘educational technologies’ and ‘instructional technologies’ were used in the article search. The document types have been examined by year, by country, by authors, by field research and by place of publication.

Background. There are still no clearly proven methods to slow down or stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Thus, improving the quality of life (QoL) of patients with PD becomes of primary importance. Autonomic dysfunction and its symptoms are known to worsen the quality of life in PD, but the degree of this influence is underinvestigated. Particularly, impacts of the separate significant gastrointestinal symptoms, such as dyspepsia, constipation, and abdominal pain, in PD should be more precisely evaluated with the help of specific scales. Objective. To assess the impacts of gastrointestinal dysfunction and its symptoms on PD patient’s QoL using PDQ-39. Methods. 111 PD patients in the I-III Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stage were enrolled in the study. The following scales were applied: UPDRS III, PDQ-39, GSRS, GDSS, MMSE, BDI, STAI-S, and STAI-T. Results. The linear regression model showed that the PDQ-39 SI depended on summary assessments GSRS-SI (β = 0.333, p < 0.001 ), BDI (β = 0.463, p < 0.001 ), and UPDRS III (β = 0.163, p < 0.05 ). The use of the stepwise method, adding GSRS-SI and UPDRS III scores to the BDI predictor, improved the model (R2 increased from 0.454 to 0.574). The investigation of GSRS domain’s influence revealed that PDQ-39 SI had a significant correlation with almost all of them, but the regression analysis showed significant QoL impacts of only two factors: constipation and abdominal pain (β = 0.288, p < 0.01 and β = 0.243, p < 0.05 accordingly). Conclusions. Our results suggest a considerable negative influence of depression and gastrointestinal dysfunction (especially constipation and abdominal pain) on QoL of patients with PD. Their impact on QoL in patients with I-III H&Y stages of PD is more significant than that of motor symptoms. Therefore, the correction of depression and gastrointestinal dysfunction should be prioritized in PD therapy.

The purpose of this study is to analyses the studies about science, technol-ogy, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the world by using the content analysis method and to reveal the trend in the field. In this study, which was carried out in a survey design to analyses the articles pub-lished in the Institute for Scientific Information web of science database be-tween 2010 and May 2020 and to determine the research trends of the arti-cles published in this direction, 100 articles selected by criterion sampling method were examined. In the selection of articles, attention was paid to in-clude studies on ‘STEM Education’ with respect to perspective of emerging technologies in learning. After examining the articles, the articles were analyses by content analysis method. The articles were examined in terms of descriptive information about the identity of the article, cate-gory field, article subject area, method, sample, data collection tools, data analysis methods and discussion size. The research data were interpreted based on the percentage and frequency findings, and data were presented as tables and graphs. According to the research data, it was determined that the highest number of publications was published be-tween 2016 and 2018, mostly studies with 2 authors were conducted, and almost all of them were written in English. In addition, it was determined that the number of hypotheses was mostly 2 or 3, and STEM education as a subject area was mostly han-dled covering all its dimensions, whereas mathematics and science educa-tion took second place. It was also observed that the experimental model and the mixed method were used extensively in the studies, and the written sources were frequently used as data collection tools. It was concluded that one-third of the sample level was primary education level studies, the sam-ple selection method was purposeful sampling, and the discussion size was 3 or 4. Based on the current research analysis, the pro-file and trends of the articles were monitored and important recommendations were made in the framework contributing to scientific research.