Author Self-Archiving Policy:

· For NIH grantees: Publishing in this journal is fully compliant with the new National Institute of Health (NIH) Public Access policy (http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess).

· Authors may upload their accepted manuscript file ("a post-print*") to institutional and/or centrally organized repositories, but must stipulate that public availability be delayed until 12 months after first online publication in the journal.

· When uploading an accepted manuscript to a repository, authors should include a credit line (see last bullet point below) and a link to the final published version of the article. This will guarantee that the definitive version is readily available to those accessing your article from public repositories, and means that your article is more likely to be cited correctly.

· A file of the final published version of the article as it appears in the journal following copyediting and proof correction may not be deposited by authors in institutional repositories.

· Authors should include the following credit line when depositing their accepted manuscripts.

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced file of an article accepted for publication in Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version  is available online at: www.irmj.ir

Definition of a post-print:
A post-print is the final draft author manuscript, as accepted for publication, including modifications based on referees' suggestions but before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction.