Avicenna Journal of Neuro Psycho Physiology
Volume:10 Issue: 4, Nov 2023

Women with diabetes often have concerns regarding their reproductive health and sexual well-being. These concerns represent all the important issues that affect the health of the reproductive system and its function, which can also affect the general and social health of the person. Therefore, the present study aimed to explain the reproductive health concerns of women with type 1 diabetes under treatment at Hami and Khazarian Clinic in Hamadan, Iran.

The present research was conducted using the exploratory qualitative method. An in-depth unstructured interview was carried out with 17 married women aged 20-45 years with type 1 diabetes, and the data collected was analyzed using the constant comparison method.

The main themes obtained were sexual performance and satisfaction with six subcategories, including physical, psychological, social, reproductive, supportive, and informational, as well as the marital dimension (sexual performance, marital satisfaction).

Since diabetes at younger ages is spreading rapidly and this problem affects the quality of marital and sexual life, the need to identify the perceived priorities of reproductive health concerns and design necessary interventions is felt.

Electrical kindling is a popular model for studying epilepsy, which is similar to complex focal seizures in humans. In this method, by implanting metal electrodes in the brain and subthreshold stimulation, the animal acquires chronic convulsions. We aimed to compare the development of rapid electrical kindling, using steel and copper electrodes. Adult male Wistar rats were used. Three polar steel or copper electrodes and two unipolar electrodes were stereotaxically embedded in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala or the skull surface, respectively. One week later, the threshold current intensity was determined. Twenty-four hours afterward, animals received six stimulations per day with the threshold intensity until showing three consecutive stage five seizures. Then, the animals were perfused and their brains were fixed, stained, and examined histologically. The results showed that the animals with the steel electrode had a significantly lower threshold compared to the animals that had a copper electrode. In addition, the number of stimulations for seizure generalization was significantly lower in the steel group. The amount of tissue damage in the experimental groups was not significantly different; however, the number of dead cells in the steel groups was significantly lower than in the copper groups. In conclusion, although the animals were kindled with copper electrodes, they may not be used for laboratory evaluations due to the neurotoxic effects of copper, which led to tissue damage, and delay in seizure parameters, and the results of such studies can be misleading.

Today, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain a leading cause of mortality. They rank first across the globe and are recognized as a multifactorial disorder, one of which is psychosocial factors. The current study aimed to determine the role of the aforementioned factors in coronary heart disease mediated by physiological responses and health-related behaviors.

 This descriptive-correlational study was performed on 270 men and women who were referred to the Department of Cardiology of Taleghani, Modares, and Farhikhtegan hospitals in Tehran and were selected via the Convenience sampling method. The research instruments were Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale -21 Items (DASS-21), perceived social support, hostility, type D personality, and adherence to treatment. To assess social variables, the questionnaire of social support, socioeconomic status, quality of life, social comparison, and psychological response was used. Finally, to examine health-related behaviors, questionnaires related to diet, smoking, and physical activity were used. The level of physiological responses of blood lipids was based on blood test results, and the severity of coronary heart disease was measured by coronary angiography. The causal relationship between variables and the research questions was examined using structural equation modeling, particularly through path analysis within the Lisrel software for the measurement model.

Based on the findings, it is evident that psychosocial factors have a significant impact on the severity of coronary heart disease. This impact is partly mediated by physiological responses and blood lipids. Therefore, it is important to consider psychosocial factors, unhealthy behaviors, and blood lipids in the treatment of coronary heart disease. The squared multiple correlations in the structural model of psychological factors account for 25.33% of the variance in coronary heart disease. This indicates that psychological factors, physiological responses, and unhealthy behaviors collectively explain 25.33% of the variance. Specifically, psychological factors explain 41.8% of the variance in physiological responses and 18.49% of the variance in unhealthy behaviors. Additionally, physiological responses account for 10.89% of the variance in coronary heart disease, while unhealthy behaviors explain 14.14% of its variance.

A questionnaire was administered to 142 individuals to determine whether they shared their dreams with others, who they shared their dreams with, why they shared their dreams, and in what social contexts dreams were shared. Respondents were also asked some questions about remembering and sharing dreams, details of dreams, regular sleep, who they shared their dreams with, the purpose of sharing dreams, feelings after awakening, attitude toward dreams, creativity and problem-solving after sharing dreams, lies about dreams, and other people’s views toward dream sharing. The sampling was performed in two stages. A total of 142 individuals were selected for the preliminary administration of questionnaires to calculate Cronbach’s alpha, and 12 individuals were selected for the panel group to validate the instrument. The content validity index and content validity ratio values were acceptable for most items, except for two, which were replaced with others. The value of Cronbach’s alpha was higher than 0.7 for all questions, indicating their acceptance. The findings of the current investigation suggest that this questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used for target populations in further studies.

This research aimed to compare the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based therapy (ACT) and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) on perfectionism and the quality of life of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This semi-experimental research was performed with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design and a control group. The statistical population of the research included all the patients of Mehr Neurological and Psychiatric Hospital as well as Imam Reza and Khorramabad Health Centers in the second half of 2022-2023. In total, 42 participants were selected by the available sampling method and divided into three groups, namely ISTDP (n=14), ACT (n=13), and the control group (n=15). They answered the Perfectionism Inventory by Hill et al. (2004) and Quality of Life by Ware and Sherbourne (2000) in three stages. The intervention groups received scheduled intervention during eight sessions based on the treatment protocol, while the control group did not receive any training. The obtained data were analyzed using variance analysis with repeated measurements.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the effects of the two methods of ACT and ISTDP on the maladaptive dimension of perfectionism (P=0.004) and the mental health dimension of quality of life (P=0.047).

It was concluded that the ACT reduced the scores of the maladaptive aspect of perfectionism more and increased the scores of the mental health dimension of the quality of life, compared to the ISTDP. Therefore, it can be said that ACT is a more effective method for the reduction of maladaptive perfectionism and increase of the mental health dimension of quality of life in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder compared to ISTDP.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of life skills training by investigating the effectiveness of probe technique on social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control among junior male high school students.

The present quasi-experimental study was conducted on all first-year high school male students (n=5,000) in Hamedan, Iran. The samples (n=50) were selected using a multi-stage cluster sampling method and divided into two groups (n=25 each). The intervention group received training on the manner of the probe method on social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control. The required data were collected using the social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control questionnaires. The gathered data were analyzed using MANCOVA multivariate analysis of covariance and Scheffe post hoc test.

According to the data obtained from the Scheffe test, the mean post-test scores of anger control, positive emotion control, depressed mood control, and adolescent anxiety control were respectively 11.32, 32.08, 6.4, 5.56, 4.68, and 7.84 higher in the intervention group than in the control group.

Teaching life skills through an intervention of the manner probe method had an effect on social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control among male adolescents and was significantly different from traditional methods.