Sadeghi-Bazargani et al. BMC Medical Ethics
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00518-x
(2020) 21:78
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Street research market: dealing with
scientific misconduct in Iran
Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani1, Leila Nikniaz2* and Hamid Reza Yousefi Nodeh3
Abstract
Background: Scientific misconduct is a prevalent phenomenon with many undesirable consequences. In Iran, no
original research have been done about scientific fraud. So, this study aimed at describing a challenging research
misconduct in Iran, its related causes, and the ways Iranian authorities deal with it.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, through a two-year period, all the advertisements installed in the study sites
were collected and the content analysis was performed. Semi-structured interviews were held with experts for
discovering the causes of misconduct. Also, published issues were collected for review of the laws on confronting
the fraud in Iran.
Results: The content analysis resulted in identifying four categories of misconduct issues: advertising approach,
types of services, outcome guarantee, and justifying the academic credit. Besides, reviewing the related literature
indicated that Iranian government and the responsible authorities have recently established serious penalties for
dealing with scientific misconduct through legislation.
Conclusions: This study revealed some misconduct in scientific activities which has persuaded the authorities to
enforce strict rules to deal with it. The effectiveness of this legislation needs to be investigated in some further
studies.
Keywords: Street research, Scientific misconduct, Iran, Legislation
Background
Misconduct refers to the planned and consciously fabrication, misrepresentation, or plagiarism of scientific
research [1]. Scientific misconduct is a prevalent
phenomenon that the scholastic organizations have challenged with it over the history of scientific publication
and had many undesirable consequences [2]. Several
studies in different countries have shown that misconduct is considered as a global issue not restricted to a
special country and unfortunately the evidence is growing. Although not all the retractions are due to fraud, a
recent review has stated that since 1975, 10-fold increase
was shown in retractions of scientific articles due to
* Correspondence: nikniazleila@gmail.com
2
Tabriz Health Services Management Research Center, Tabriz University of
Medical Sciences, Daneshgah Street, Tabriz, Iran
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
fraud [2]. Fraud, plagiarism and duplicate publication
were attributed to 43.4, 9.8 and 14.2% of cases, respectively. Error was attributable to only 21.3% of cases.
Seventy-five percent of fraud related retractions
belonged to Japan, China and the United States [3].
Today, with the increasing number of scientists, novel
practices of misconduct in the educational systems of
the world has existed [4]. Nevertheless, it is less common to recognize the research misconduct practices and
the public and governments’ reactions to them in different countries [4]. Recently, a report was published in
Science by Stone [5] about specific shops which produced scientific papers particularly for students in Iran
which caused different reactions [6]. In this marketing
institutions and advertisers offer to write students’ theses
and scientific papers for a fee, advertising on the internet
or via the placard-carrying touts outside the University.
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The mentioned report was a visiting case report which
showed that a survey is needed to describe the details of
this type of scientific fraud in Iran. Thus, with a twoyear survey, we described a sample of research misconduct in Iran, its causes and how the Iranian government
dealt with it through legislation.
This study described a challenging research misconduct in Iran, its related causes, and the ways Iranian authorities deal with it.
Methods
Iranian academic system structure
In Iran, higher education is provided at universities and
colleges/institutions. Some of these are private educational institutions (n = 37) and the others are State-run
institutions offer free education (n = 90). University level
studies in Iran are divided into three stages, associate’s
degree (Kardani) or bachelor’s degree (Karshenasi), master’s degree (Karshenasi-arshad), and doctorate. At the
undergraduate level, thesis is not mandatory; however,
in some disciplines, it is mandatory to complete a research project. In the postgraduate level, it is necessary
to complete the dissertation and defense, except for
some fields in Payame Noor University, which does not
require a thesis for master’s degree.
In Iran, the National Committee on Ethics in Biomedical Research was established in 1998 in the Research
Deputy of the Ministry of Health, and a year later, the
Regional Committees on Ethics in Research were established in universities and research centers. All of the universities of medical sciences in Iran have local ethical
committees. These committees undertake of the supervision and observation of national and international laws
on medical ethics in research. Ethics committees in universities are responsible for investigating research misconduct and providing ethical codes to research
projects.
As this study is an exploratory study, we actually used
three different sources for collecting the data regarding
answering the questions: 1- a field work for demonstrating the status of misconduct 2- Interview with experts
for explaining the pattern of this type of misconduct 3- a
literature review for finding legislations.
Fieldwork
The present study was conducted through a qualitative
content analysis from 2015 to 2017. At first, under
targeted sampling, top and key universities in Tehran
were identified and visited (Amirkabir University of
Technology, Iran University of Science and Technology,
Islamic Azad University, Islamic Azad University of
Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical
Sciences, Sharif University of Technology, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran University of Medical Sciences,
and University of Tehran). Around these universities,
number and content of installed advertisements were
assessed. Based on the first step and number and content of the installed advertisements, the near locations to
Tehran university of medical sciences and university of
Tehran were identified as the most suspected area for
scientific fraud (also stated in Stone’s report) and was
considered for sampling. These universities were located
in Enghelab square of Tehran which is a highly frequented area by students because of the presence of
some major universities of Tehran, the high number of
student dormitories and existence of many well-known
bookstores and scientific service delivery institutions.
Thus, these sites are usually considered as the best
places for installation of advertisements related to scientific activities.
Sampling
Sampling included eight phases of 45–60 min walks in
the predetermined locations in which photographs were
taken from the advertisements installed in the study
sites. All the advertisements related to translating, data
analyzing, article acceptance, writing article, thesis &
proposal, book authoring and the other services were enrolled. Some institutions had different forms of advertisements with different contents. All these varying
contents were shot and considered.
Content analysis
As a preliminary analytic step, all ads were examined.
Manifest and latent analysis methods were applied to
analyse the ads. In manifest analysis, the ads installation
location, style, and discipline were analysed and through
the latent analysis, the categories of the misconduct
problem were identified. In this phase, the duplicate ads
were excluded; all the institutions were identified and
categorized. For identifying categories, the texts and
phrases of posters, banners and advertising cards were
thoroughly studied, interpreted and encoded. Codes
were developed inductively by reading the advertisements multiple times. The information were categorized
(codes with a common concept were categorized under
a theme and named). Coding was done by two researchers using the following process: Data immersion
(getting familiar with context of data), identifying and
extracting primary codes, identifying themes (putting extracted primary codes in related themes), reviewing and
completing identified themes, naming and defining
themes and assuring the reliability of extracted codes
and themes. During the coding process, the two evaluators with previous experience of quality assessment independently assessed the advertisements. In case of
disagreement, they worked out a settlement together
through discussion. In order to avoid unnecessary
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repetitions, if an advertisement appeared many times, it
was counted as one. Agreement between the coders was
verified using The Kappa coefficient (k). Values below
0.40 or so represent poor agreement beyond chance,
kappa values between 0.40 and 0.75 represent intermediate agreement, and values greater than 0.75 or so represent excellent agreement beyond chance [7].
Interview with experts
To address the reasons of scientific fraud in Iran, our
study investigated expert views regarding this issue with
a questionnaire developed for this study (Additional file 1). The questions were as follows: What is
your understanding of scientific fraud? Do you think
there are gaps, issues or problems related to scientific integrity in Iran? What do you perceive to be the primary
threats to the scientific integrity in Iran? What do you
perceive to be the main sources of scientific misconduct
in Iran? What do you perceive to be the role of universities in growing of scientific fraud in Iran? What do you
perceive to be the role of health ministry in growing of
scientific fraud in Iran? What do you perceive to be the
role of students in growing of scientific fraud in Iran?
What do you perceive to be the solutions to prevent scientific fraud in Iran? What interventions would make
the biggest difference to improve scientific integrity in
Iran? In conclusion, is there anything else we haven’t
discussed that you wish we had?
For recruiting the experts, a purposive sampling
method was used. The experts were identified based on
work experience, expertise and affiliations, and their
publications in different fields of science. Fifteen experts
were contacted by telephone. Also, an additional group
of experts (5 experts) was contacted through snowball
sampling. Data collection continued until no new
themes arose from the data. The interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim by two researchers.
For further strengthening the methodology, multiple
coding and validity checks were performed. The transcribed interviews were verified for validity against the
recording by HYN, HSB and experts. Disagreements in
coding between the researcher and experts were discussed between the two authors (LN and HSB) and experts resulting in final coding of themes. The inter-rater
reliability among the researchers who performed the
coding was performed and the percentage of disagreement was calculated for each of the interviews.
Legislation literature review
The published studies until March 2018 were collected for
literature review of the laws on preventing and confronting
the fraud in preparation of scientific works in Iran by
searching
PubMed/MEDLINE,
Scopus,
EMBASE,
Cochrane library, ISI Web of science, Proquest and Google
scholar. In addition, Iranian databases including Scientific
Information Database, Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology, Magiran, IranMedex, and
Barakat knowledge network system, and National System
of Laws and Regulations of the Islamic Republic of Iran
were searched. The search keywords included (but not limited to): “(law OR legislation OR penalty) AND (minister of
science OR president OR speaker of parliament OR government) AND (scientific misconduct OR fraud OR fabrication
OR misrepresentation OR plagiarism) AND (Iran)”. The
following information was subtracted from the studies:
name of the law, approval date, the rules, and the consequences of non-compliance with the laws.
Ethical issue
Off the different sources for collecting the data, interview with experts was the only part involving human
participants. This part of the study was in accordance
with the ethical standards of the Ethics Committee of
Tabriz University of Medical Science (R.TBZMED.VCR.REC.1398.271) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration
and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Also, a written informed consent was obtained
from all individual participants included in the study.
Results
Fieldwork
In this study, 124 advertisements belonging to 40 advertisers (so called institutions) were identified over eight
quarterly sampling runs in a two-year period. Inter-rater
reliability was assessed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient, reaching an r value of 0.8. The agreement between
both observers was also good (Kappa = 0.76). After content analysis of the data, the three categories of misconduct including types of services, outcome guarantee, and
justifying the academic credit were defined. In addition,
one other category named as “unprofessional advertising
approach” is explored that provided beneficial information but not classifiable as misconduct. Table 1 describes
the identified categories including the text and phrases
applied in the posters, banners and advertising cards. .
Unprofessional advertising approach explore
In this study, 40.3% of advertisements suffered from unprofessional advertising approach which comprises six
subcategories as follows: using ambiguous terms, improper location for installing ads, improper installation,
unreasonable acceptance time, multiple advertising
forms, and destroying scientific identity (Table 1).
Figure 1 illustrates the advertising approach and content
of advertisements. As clarified in Fig. 1, ambiguous terms
were used in the ads such as “ISI paper” especially for
bypassing the potential problems (Fig. 1a). Installation of
ads outside the academic environments such as on the
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Table 1 The identified categories (the text and phrases of posters, banners and advertising cards)
Categories
Unprofessional advertising approach
(not classifiable as misconduct)
Services
N (%)
Subcategories
50 (40.3) Using ambiguous terms
Justification
N (%)
“ISI paper” (refer to Fig. 1.a): what does it mean?
Finding ISI papers for literature review of thesis
OR providing ISI articles
22 (16.9)
Improper location for installing
ads
Installation of ads on the Relief Committee Fund 21 (16.1)
or trash bins. Refer to Fig. 1.b
Improper installation
Improper installation of ads with sticks. Refer to
Fig. 1.a
19 (15.3)
Unreasonable acceptance time
“Acceptance in 2 days” (Fig. 1.d)
18 (10.8)
Multiple advertising forms
Darolfonoon Institute with different advertising
forms, each for special purposes. Refer to Fig. 1.
a&d
14 (11.3)
Destroying scientific identity
Refer to Fig. 1. a, b
118 (95.1) Performing students’ projects and Refer to Fig. 1. f
research
10 (8.0)
100 (80.6)
Refer to Fig. 1. e
89 (71.8)
Translating
Refer to Fig. 1. e
55 (44.3)
Printing and typing
Refer to Fig. 1. e
36 (29.0)
Data analyzing
Refer to Fig. 1. g
42 (33.9)
Getting an acceptance
Refer to Fig. 1. g
42 (33.9)
Editing
Refer to Fig. 1. f
31 (25.0)
Holding educational courses
Refer to Fig. 1. c
25 (20.1)
Writing articles, theses and
proposals
Refer to Fig. 1. f
19 (15.3)
Book authoring
Refer to Fig. 1. g
11 (8.8)
consulting
Guarantee
Explanations and Quotations
Consulting with professors
Refer to Fig. 1. e
10 (8.0)
Submitting
Refer to Fig. 1. g
8 (6.4)
Debugging of thesis
Refer to Fig. 1.h
2 (1.6)
Rewriting
Refer to Fig. 1. g
1 (0.8)
Thesis related services
Refer to Fig. 1. d
100 (80.6)
Refer to Fig. 1.a
87 (70.2)
95 (76.6) ISI article
Guarantee
“100% guarantee” refer to Fig. 1.a
23 (18.5)
Best quality guarantee
“Performing project with best quality and 100%
guarantee”. Refer to Fig. 1.i
14 (11.3)
Free of charge article guarantee
bonus
Refer to Fig. 1.j
8 (6.4)
Services without dealer
Refer to Fig. 1.e
8 (6.4)
Impact factor guarantee
Refer to Fig. 1.k
3 (2.4)
Acceptance guarantee
“Get paid after acceptance”. Refer to Fig. 1.a
2 (1.6)
Time guarantee
“Acceptance or writing article in 5 days”. Refer to 1 (0.8)
Fig. 1.a
28 (22.5) Approved by the Ministry of
Science
Refer to Fig. 1.g
3 (2.4)
Approved by professors
Refer to Fig. 1.e
14 (11.3)
Approved by PhD students
Refer to Fig. 1.e
8 (6.4)
Applying well known publisher
logos
Refer to Fig. 1.h
5 (4.0)
Name of the institute
“Amiran Scientific, Educational and Research
Institute”. Refer to Fig. 1. c
2 (1.6)
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Fig. 1 The advertising approach and content of advertisements
trash bins, pillars of the footbridges or relief committee
fund boxes (Fig. 1b), and abusing of words such as “Acceptance from ISI journal in 2 days” (Fig. 1 c) were different features of destroying scientific identity. In addition,
these ads were improperly and irregularly designed and
installed (Fig. 1.a) and 11.3% of them had multiple advertising forms (fig. a & d).
Types of services
As indicated in Table 1, 95.1% of advertisements covered
different types of services related to misconduct including performing students’ projects and research (Fig. 1.f),
consulting (Fig. 1.e), translating (Fig. 1.e), printing &
typing (Fig. 1.e), data analyzing (Fig. 1.g), article acceptance (Fig. 1.g), editing (Fig. 1.f), holding research-related
courses (Fig. 1.c), writing article, thesis & proposal (Fig.
1.f), book authoring (Fig. 1.g), consulting with professors
(Fig. 1.e), submitting (Fig. 1.g), debugging of thesis (Fig.
1.h), rewriting (Fig. 1.g), and thesis related services (Fig.
1.d).
The majority of ads (90.6%) featured two or more services and only 9.3% of them offered a single service. The
subcategory entitled ‘performing students’ projects & research’ was the most commonly advertised service
(80.6%), followed by ‘consulting’ (71.8%), ‘translating’
(45.2%), and ‘printing & typing’ (44.3%).
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Outcome guarantee
In this study, 76.6% of the ads had the statement which
guaranteed some services such as guarantee of ISI acceptance of the articles (Fig. 1.a), guarantee, used as a
single word (Fig. 1.a), best quality guarantee (Fig. 1.i),
free of charge article guarantee bonus (Fig. 1.j), services
without dealer (Fig. 1.e), guarantee of accepting in high
impact factor journal (Fig. 1.k), acceptance guarantee
and improvement guarantee (Fig. 1.a). Acceptance in the
ISI journals was the most commonly advertised guarantee (70.2%).
Justifying the academic credit
In 22.5% of these ads, titles such as “Approved by the
Ministry of Science” (Fig. 1.g) or “Approved by professors” (Fig. 1.e), logos such as “Elsevier logo” (Fig. 1.h)
and an academic name such as “[name of the institutions] Scientific, Educational and Research Institute”
(Fig. 1.c) were applied for justifying the company’s scientific credibility.
Interview with experts
We selected 20 experts fifteen of whom responded to
our original invitation for an interview and the other five
were identified by snowball sampling. The response rate
was very high (100%). All of the experts were interviewed through 1-h face to face meetings. All transcripts
were checked for validity by HYN, HSB and experts.
These checks did not result in any significant content
changes. The inter-rater reliability was high; on average
per interview 78% of the coded items were comparable
between the two researchers and experts.
The hypotheses proposed for explaining the potential
reasons for scientific fraud in Iran is depicted in Fig. 2.
Three hypotheses are proposed for this issue including
university related reasons, students related reasons and
service providers related causes. For each hypothesis, the
different subthemes were identified which have been
mentioned in Fig. 2.
Legislation literature review
The search strategy resulted in one criminal law including the single article and ten notes enacted at the
plenary session of Islamic Parliament on Tuesday,
September 22, 2017, and approved by the Guardian
Council on August 30, 2017. The Islamic Parliament
enacted “The law on preventing and confronting the
fraud in preparation of scientific works”. For summarizing the law, the notes were presented in the supplemental document; however, the content of the Law of
Fig. 2 Hypotheses proposed for explaining the reasons for scientific fraud in Iran
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Preventing and Confronting the Fraud in Preparation of
Scientific Works is summarized as follows:
It is a criminal action to prepare, present, transform
works including dissertations, theses, papers, research
projects, books, reports or other written or recorded
research-scientific works or artistic pieces, whether in
electronic or non-electronic format, by any real person
or legal entity in order to make a profit and as an occupation -with the aim of presenting the whole work or
part of it by someone else as their own works. The perpetrator(s) have to return the earned money to the state
treasury and will additionally be penalized as follows:
1. Committing a crime by a real person is subject to a
third-grade cash penalty and a sixth-grade
deprivation from social rights.
2. In the case of committing a crime by a legal entity,
in addition to the punishment of perpetrator(s),
managers and the involved coordinators -the
penalty of the legal entity is determined in the
Islamic Penal Code approved on (April 21, 2013).
Discussion
Scientific fraud is a universal and multifaceted problem
and identification of its patterns, risks and potential solutions are still in its initial stages [8]. Similar to many
countries in the world, Iran also suffers from scientific
fraud. The authors prefer to use the term “street advertising for research” for this type of fraud. In the current
study, we described the details of this type of scientific
fraud and how Iranian authorities deal with it.
Based on the results, the approach of street advertisements was inappropriate. Improper use of words,
phrases, unsuitable location for installing ads, improper
installation and exaggerated claims make these ads far
away from principles of advertising [9]. that can result in
destroying scientific identity. High demand for scientific
fraud is one of the reasons for improper advertising. As
the supply is tailored to the demand, the cause of the demand should be critically analyzed. Based on the results
of this study, performing students’ projects & research
(80.6%) was the most commonly advertised service.
Other highly advertised services such as consulting’,
‘translating’, and ‘printing & typing’ were not or less
likely for misconduct and increasing the delivery of these
services in universities can prevent college students from
visiting non-academic institutions. So, the boundary between legitimate publishing support and illegitimate
practices should be clarified for the students (researchers) and advertisers to prevent the misconduct.
Based on the expert panel review, three hypotheses are
proposed for explaining the potential reasons for scientific fraud in Iran including university related reasons,
students related reasons and service providers related
Page 7 of 8
causes. So, in providing solutions to prevent scientific
fraud, all these aspects must be taken into account.
Legislation is one of the main solutions to prevention
and suppression of scientific fraud [10].
However, it seems that the existing legislations are disproportional to the harm caused by misconduct. During
the past decade, for prevention of misconduct, only two
criminal legal rules were identified to be used. The False
Statements Statute, 18. U.S.C. 1001 and The Mail Fraud
Statute, 18. U.S.C. 1341 are the examples of the rules [11].
Hopefully, Iran has established ethical committees
countrywide to deal exactly with the concerns mentioned in this survey. The new specific law against academic misconduct in Iran is a significant and helpful
step toward an improved academic atmosphere [12].
Providing criminal sanctions for scientific misconduct
have direct and indirect scientific and public aids. Stimulating researchers to be more cautious in their research
is one of the important benefits of criminalizing misconduct [10].
This new law in Iran has punitive point of view to the
scientific fraud. Having a visible structure of law implementation and punishment is more effective than having
no system [13]. However, it seems that in order to have
an effective legislation, punishment should not be the
sole legal intervention to address the problem and promoting standards and supportive vision should be considered. In addition, the ways beyond approved
legislation such as providing oversight standards for educational and research organizations aimed at controlling
the process of performance of the academic practices is
suggested. Also, various educational courses such as
holding conferences and seminars are needed in order to
empowering the technological aspects of the observers
and students for prevention of academic misconducts.
Moreover, promoting public attitude and knowledge
about the development of knowledge is essential and the
media has an important role in this regard. Creating the
infrastructure needed to train the scientists is the other
solution for preventing misconduct and fraud.
This study had some limitations. In this study, all regions of the country were not surveyed and only the
areas surrounding the major universities of Tehran were
investigated. In addition, it should be noted that internet
advertising was not included in this study; however, at
the time of performing this research and before establishment of the new rules, there was a few internet advertisements. Although the comprehensive pattern of
the problem may vary to some extent taking into account the generalizability of the issue, the explored situation is informative enough for managing the problem.
By adopting new laws in Iran and prohibiting street advertising, online advertising may be considered by defrauders. So, constant monitoring and controlling is
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desired. As expert interview is not an adequate method
to identify causality, more precise studies are desired to
find the exact causes of misconduct.
Health Services Management Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical
Sciences, Daneshgah Street, Tabriz, Iran. 3Student research committee,
Research Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical
Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Conclusion
Iran encountered a type of scientific misconduct which
might lead to quality loss of scientific productions, competence inequality, and destruction of the scientific identity.
The etiologic depiction of the issue can be defined as 12
items in three domains of university related reasons, students related reasons and service providers related causes.
For preventing and confronting the fraud, severe impose
policies were established by Iranian government. As the
survey in this study was conducted before the legislation,
future studies should focus on the effectiveness of these
rules in preventing scientific misconduct.
Received: 28 December 2019 Accepted: 9 August 2020
Supplementary information
Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.
1186/s12910-020-00518-x.
Additional file 1. The interview guide. Supplementary material, doc.
Abbreviations
LMIC: Low and Middle Income Countries; Fig: Figure
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the expert panel for attending the brain storming
sessions and providing valuable comments. Also, we thank Dr. Zeinab
Nikniaz, Dr. Mostafa Farahbakhsh and Mr. Amir Shojaei for their editing and
kind recommendations.
Authors’ contributions
H.S designed and directed the project and aided in interpreting the results;
N. L developed the theoretical framework, drafted the manuscript and
designed the figures; H. Y collected the ads, characterized them and
performed the analysis. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the
public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available
from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Off the different sources for collecting the data, interview with experts was
the only part involving human participants. This part of the study was in
accordance with the ethical standards of the Ethics Committee of Tabriz
University of Medical Science (R.TBZMED.VCR.REC.1398.271) and with the
1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards. Also, a written informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Author details
1
Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Department of Statistics and
Epidemiology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. 2Tabriz
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