Abstract Background: Iran (I.R.) is suffering the growing problem of opiate abuse. In evaluation of the treatment plan for opium dependent patients, a valid and reliable instrument is needed to measure patients' severity of dependence. This study aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the Persian version of the "Substance Dependence Severity Scale" (SDSS). Methods: After tr...

Abstract Background: Identity disturbance is one of the DSM-IV criteria for borderline personality disorder, but there has been little attention to its nature. Four subsets of identity disturbance (role absorption, painful incoherence, inconsistency and lack of commitment) have been assessed. This study aimed to assess the role of these subsets in patients with borderline person...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that opium addiction has immunosuppressant effects. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a condition resulted from atherosclerosis which is dependent on the immune response. PURPOSE To evaluate plasma levels of interleukin-6 and interleukin-1Ra in 30 patients with three-vessel coronary artery disease, ejection fraction of more than 35% and to evaluate their changes af...

Background: Fertility is considered as a life conservative phenomenon among married couples which can be obliterated by various conditions affecting both males and females. In the other hand addiction is a problem which increasingly developed among the various populations throughout the world, and there are evidences that addiction may affect the hypothalamous-pituitary-gonadal axis and sexual ...

UNLABELLED Treating pain is one of the most difficult challenges in medicine and a key facet of disease management. The isolation of morphine by Friedrich Sertürner in 1804 added an essential pharmacological tool in the treatment of pain and spawned the discovery of a new class of drugs known collectively as opioid analgesics. Revered for their potent pain-relieving effects, even Morpheus the g...

Several sub-committees are reporting on the work that has been done since the last meeting of the Health Committee in June, 1923. Thus the Opium Sub-Committee?made up of members of the Opium and Health Committees?has undertaken an inquiry into the average amounts of opium and dangerous drugs required by each country annually for medical and scientific purposes, and the best way of pursuing furt...

BACKGROUND Addiction in pregnant women causes complications such as abortion, asphyxia and cerebral and physical problems. APGAR score assesses vital signs and birth weight and represents the physical and brain growth of newborns. In this study, the effects of opium addiction in mothers on birth weight and APGAR scores of neonates were discussed. METHODS This study analytic, descriptive study...

The problem of pain relief is one that faces every doctor. Indeed as Sir Hugh Cairns (1949) told medical students in an inaugural address at King's College some twenty years ago, 'Tour patients need from you more than diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency. They do not come to you to be cured; they come to be relieved of their pains and other symptoms, and to be comforted." There can be no doubt...

BACKGROUND Opium addiction alters immune responses to stresses such as an injury due to changing the secretion of cytokines. The present study assessed the effect of opium addiction on the cytokines [tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4), and IL-10] before and after laparotomy. METHODS Male rats were randomly divided into control and opium addicted (n = 20...