Researcher Bulletin of Medical Sciences

Introduction: The present study was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group therapy in quality of life and hope among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial, using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, 20 MS patients were selected through available sampling among the patients in Mashhad Multiple Sclerosis Association in 2016 and were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups, each containing 10 subjects. The experimental group underwent cognitive-behavioral group therapy in 10 weekly sessions of 2 hours and the control group did not receive this treatment. In the pretest and posttest, Quality of Life Questionnaire-Short Form (SF-36) and Snyder ‎Adult Hope Scale (AHS)‎ were implemented on all the subjects of the experimental and control groups. Data was analyzed using analysis of covariance and t-test.

Results: The results demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral group therapy significantly leads to increased overall index of quality of life and hope (p<0.001) in the experimental group compared to the control group. Further, out of quality of life components, dimensions of physical function, role limitation due to physical problems, fatigue or vitality, emotional health and general health of the experimental group showed a greater increase at the end of the intervention relative to the control group (p<0.001) and concerning other subscales, the difference between the two groups was not significant.

The purpose of this study is to present an effective education model and approach to drug abuse prevention among educational clients and improvement centers of the country. This srudy is a descriptive and surveying research and the combination method (qualitative and quantitative). The Delphi panel has 22 experts with a history of coaching and 212 employees at the correctional center. The data gathering tool was a semi-structured interview and a researcher-made questionnaire. To determine the content validity of the questionnaire, experts judgment and comprehensive literature review of the research have been used. For reliability measurement, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used, which was obtained at 981. For data processing and statistical analysis, SPSS-23 software was used. In addition to descriptive statistics, the correlation coefficient test, exploratory factor analysis has been used. Findings show that the most effective component in the knowledge aspect of drug abuse prevention and stimulus among the clients of the correctional centers of the country in desirable condition, knowledge of the laws and regulations (8.8019), health and safety (8.7869), cognitive (8.7764) and religious and spiritual (8.6962). In the aspect of attitude, the confidence is (8.7453) and emotional (8.7022) respectively. Also, the results show that there is a significant difference between the current and the desired status in the field of health, religious and spiritual, legal awareness, cognitive, emotional and self-confidence of the recipients.

One of the latest and most controversial areas of science is biotechnology. Genetic engineering concerns with the manipulation of DNA molecules to modify plants, animals and other creatures. Scientists are now able to isolate a gene or genome in an animal or plant to another one, based on the traits they want to transfer. The movement of a gene from a living creature to another one is called the recombinant DNA technology. The technology is developing rapidly. Regarding the specific features of biotechnology, opportunities are being created for the emergence of technological entrepreneurship projects in countries that have developed the logic science which provides the necessary capacity to establish connections to the international biotechnology network. This article seeks to find the relevance of technological innovation and entrepreneurship criteria to different technologies, including biotechnology. By improving sub-indicators of innovation and creating technological entrepreneurship units in businesses, we can increase the growth speed of their technologies. Moreover, some reports of global innovation indicators suggest the growth of Iran in technological areas from 2014 to 2017. This is due to the entering of technological entrepreneurship units in these areas, particularly biotechnology.

Introduction: With regard to the increasing aesthetic solutions through makeup and plastic surgeries, high rate of cosmetics sales in Iran, and increased office visit for plastic surgeries, the purpose of this study is to analysis the effect of rhinoplasty on self-confidence and happiness of women aged 16 to 35 who were visited in private clinics in Urmia city in December 2014.

Materials and Methods: The study performed on 40 women who have undertaken rhinoplasty, 40 women who were waiting for rhinoplasty, and a group of 40 women who have not undergone rhinoplasty. Copper Smith self-esteem questionnaire including 58 questions and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire including 29 questions have been used in this study.

Results: The results of student’s t-test for independent groups showed that from the aspects of self-esteem and happiness, there was a difference between the group who have done surgery and those who were standing by.

Discussion and Conclusion: The findings show that self-esteem and happiness of the people who undergone rhinoplasty is equal and even more than those who were standing by for this operation or have not taken the operation.

Background and Objective: Old age is an important period of life, and paying attention to the issues and needs of this course is a social necessity. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare death anxiety, self-concept and attitudes to old age in the elderly living on their own, residing in nursing homes full-time or part-time, or living with extended families in Kermanshah, Iran.

Materials and Methods: In this descriptive and causal-comparative study, the statistical population consisted of the elderly living on their own, residing in nursing homes full-time or part-time, or living with extended families in Kermanshah, Iran over 2016-2017. A total of 304 subjects were selected through random sampling and convenience sampling. As for data collection, three questionnaires were employed:  Templer's Death Anxiety Scale  (1970), Beck’s Self-concept Inventory (1990), and Kogan's Attitudes toward Older People Scale (KAOPS) (1961).

Results: The mean scores of just death and general factor of the variable of death anxiety and the mean scores of negative and positive attitudes of the elderly residing in nursing homes full-time were lower than those of other groups. In addition, the mean score of self-concept of the elderly living on their own was higher than those of other groups.

Discussion and Conclusion: The levels of death anxiety and attitudes towards old age in the elderly residing in nursing homes were lower than those in other groups. It was also concluded that the level of self-concept of the elderly living on their own was higher than those of other groups.

Tinnitus is one of the common and chronic problems of the ear and nose. It has various causes and in spite of various treatments, it decreases the quality of life of patients. Neurofeedback is a method that has been providing observation and recording of brain waves and it is effective in controlling brain activity and self-awareness in various diseases such as depression, hyperactivity and tinnitus, and etc. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of neurofeedback on improving the quality of life of patients with tinnitus referring to Isfahan Auditory Center.

Methods:

The Iranian version of the quality of life questionnaire, which is presented by the WHO, was given to patients with tinnitus who referred to Isfahan Auditory Center for treatment of neurofeedback. The questionnaires were completed by the patients before starting treatment and again after the completion of the course. During the study, people aged 20-70 years without psychotics and echoes of pathologic and etiologic causes were included in the study. The scores were calculated based on QOL questionnaire and, with other demographic information, and entered into the SPSS software for analysis.

Results:

Thirty-five patients were enrolled in the study. The mean of ages was 37.28 ± 11.20 years, 48.57% were male and 51.43% were female. Eleven patients (31.42%) have one-way tinnitus. Ten patients were ill for less than 6 months and 11 patients were ill over 2 years, and in 18 patients (51.42%), hearing loss was observed. The mean QOL score in patients, before treatment, was 74.8, and it was 99 after treatment; so, there was 32.33% increase in scores. This increase was significant (p <0.01). However, there is no significant relationship between gender, age and duration of the disease with improving quality of life (p >0.05). There is only a significant relationship between the number of treatment sessions and the improvement of quality of life (p <0.05) and increased QOL rate by 25.31%.

Conclusion:

Finally, it can be concluded that tinnitus has a significant effect on the quality of life of patients, and the neurofeedback has been able to increase the quality of life of patients, but this relationship is not related to gender, age, and other variables except the number of treatment sessions.

Objective: Nasal tip refinement is an important objective in aesthetic rhinoplasty and one of the surgical options for soft tissue management in very thick bulbous skin and subcutaneous noses is tip defatting. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and complications of tip defatting in thick skin and bulbous noses.

Methods: Among 527 patients that underwent rhinoplasty in Modaress hospital between February 2011 and January 2014, nasal tip defatting were performed in 162 of these patients. Intraoperatively and in follow up examinations, any signs of skin congestion, ischemia, hematoma, and skin quality evaluated.

Results: Among 162 patients who had performed tip defatting [39 (24.1%) male patients and 123 (75.9%) female], complications were skin congestion in 6 patients (3.7%), ecchymosis in 10 patient (6.1%). There were no cases of skin necrosis, skin perforations or skin irregularity.

Conclusion: Our study and many previous studies show that tip defatting in association with lower lateral cartilage reduction is a safe and helpful method in correction of bulbous nose deformity

Introduction: This study aims to examine the role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the degree of depression, anxiety, and stress of coronary heart disease patients by using predictive correlation method.

Materials and Methods: In this research population consisted of all coronary heart disease patients who referred to Cardiovascular Specialized Hospital in Kermanshah city among whom 130 were selected as participants using available sampling method. Subsequently, they asked to complete Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Collected data were analyzed using correlation matrix, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Results: The MANOVA results showed that there was a significant difference between male and female patients (p< 0.05) in the strategies of rumination, positive refocusing, planning and positive reappraisal and blaming others. The results of correlation matrix showed that there was positive and significant relationship between inefficient components of self-blame, other-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing, and negative relationship between components of putting into perspective, positive refocusing, planning, and positive reappraisal with patients’ depression. In addition, the results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that among cognitive emotion regulation components, independent of gender, four components of self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing, and low positive reappraisal have great ability to predict depression, three components of self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing and planning are strong significant predictors of anxiety, and three components of self-blame, rumination and low positive reappraisal, respectively have the high ability to predict stress in coronary heart patients disease(p<0.05).

Conclusion: According to the research results, the role of inefficient cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the degree of depression, anxiety, and stress of coronary heart disease patients have been demonstrated. Thus, teaching efficient cognitive strategies in setting up emotions to enhance the physical, psychological, and social health of coronary heart disease patients seems necessary.

Background: According to recent researches, decision-making style and personality traits play an important role in the drug dependence vulnerability. The aim of current research was to investigate the moderator role of decision-making styles on relationship between personality and drug dependence vulnerability.

Materials and Methods: Two hundred and twenty students of Tehran Payame Noor University were selected randomly and completed NEO big five personality scale, general decision-making style questionnaire and risk of addiction questionnaire. The data were analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis.

Results: The results of present study indicated that only neuroticism is able to predict risk of addiction. In addition, intuitive, dependent, spontaneous and avoidant decision-making style moderated the relationship between neuroticism and drug dependence vulnerability.

Conclusions: The results showed that by changing the decision-making style, it is possible to prevent substance dependence disorders in vulnerable populations.

The present study was aimed to examine the relationship between parental report about their children’s obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms and thought fusion with the parent-child relationship structure among the adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The research method was correlational descriptive and the statistical population included all the adolescents affected by obsessive compulsive disorder in the City of Ardabil during the 2015-2016 year. The sampling method was available sampling so that 83 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder were selected from and the questionnaires were implemented on them. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression method. The results showed a significant relationship between the parental report about their children’s obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms and the parent-child relationship structure, but no significant relationship was observed between the thought fusion of the adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder and the parent-child relationship structure. Therefore, this research showed that using the parental report for detecting OCD in adolescents can be an effective strategy and can be used as a clinical assessment for additional assurance. Also, another important finding highlights the relationship between parent-child relationship structure and parent’s ability to predict their children abnormalities, so investigating family relationships also can be used for better understanding of patient’s problem and needs.

Background: Marital infidelity in our country is increasing and a few studies have been done on the factors influencing marital satisfaction afterwards. Therefore, in this study, we decided to determine the role of psychosocial factors affecting marital satisfaction in couples after marital infidelity.

Method: This analytical-cross-sectional study was conducted on 235 couples who betrayed and did betrayal referred to relevant centers (counseling centers of Tehran and Mashhad’s university and court). Subjects completed marital satisfaction questionnaires (ENRICH)[1], attitudes toward infidelity scale (MARK WHATLY), adult attachment scale (RAAS), men’s and women’s sexual schema scale, and data were entered into SPSS 21 software after encoding and were analyzed by linear regression statistical method.

Results: The results of data analysis showed that the most important factors affecting marital satisfaction were: attitude toward infidelity, scale of passionate – romantic scale, age and embarrassed - conservation schema (women) (p <0.05). Among these variables, age, attitude towards infidelity and embarrassed - conservation scale are inversely correlated with marital satisfaction, meaning that the higher the variance in terms of these variables, we will see less marital satisfaction after infidelity. But the passionate – romantic scale has a direct relationship with marital satisfaction, meaning that the more men are stronger in terms of this schema, the greater the marital satisfaction between the couples after the infidelity.

Discussion and Conclusion: According to the findings of this research, it can be recommended to therapists to consider these variables in their therapeutic components to promote marital satisfaction after infidelity.

Introduction: Acceptance and commitment therapy [ACT] can enhance psychological flexibility and subsequently improve mental health and quality of life of individuals. Also recovery of patients with chronic low back pain (LBP) is depended on several physical and psychological factors. Therefore, the authors aimed to examine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on quality of life of women with chronic low back pain.

Method: It was a semi-experimental research with pre-test and post-test design together with control group. Participants were 14 women with chronic low back pain attending clinical centers and hospitals of Rasht who were selected by convenience sampling. Next, they were randomly assigned to experimental (ACT+ usual medical care) and the control group (usual medical care only).Then experimental group received ACT for 8 one-hour sessions. To analyze the data, covariance analysis was used. The instrument was self-reported by the World Health Organization's quality of life. Data analysis was performed using analysis of independent t-test.

Results: Results indicated reduction effect in pain severity in the patients who practiced 8 sessions ACT reported significantly lower pain than patients who only received usual medical care. Also, the results shows that except of subscale of physical health (P < 0.38) there was significant increase in all other subscales of quality of life in experimental group (P < 0.001).

Conclusion: The results show that acceptance and commitment therapy reduces pain severity and improve the quality of life and recommend use of coping strategic with pain in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). Counselors and family therapists recommended a counseling centers and family education classes in order to improve quality of life of female patients with CLBP.

Background and Objective: In self-regulation learning, learners will have personal control over the learning process, and emotional intelligence refers to personal control of emotions and feelings of self-regulation. The present study seeks to determine the relationship between the components of self-regulation learning and emotional intelligence.

Materials and Methods: A sample of 200 students (100 females and 100 males) who were studying at Tehran and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in the study. Self-regulation learning scale and Goleman's emotional intelligence questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression tests.

Results: The results of regression analysis showed that the correlation coefficient between self-regulation learning and emotional intelligence was negative (r = -0.171 and p = 0.015). Among the self-regulation learning components, the correlation coefficient between emotional intelligence and organization and transfer components (r = -0.144, p= 0.041) and self-efficacy (p = 0.011, r = -0.18) were significant.

Conclusion: The negative relationship in the present research suggests that feelings emotions for expressing themselves and facilitating their presentation emerge in the easiest, happiest and most successful way of thinking and harmony. But self-regulation learning is a way to repeat and practice, persevere and tolerate problems to reach logical thinking.

Introduction

Management and human factors are the most important changing which humanity is facing today in all fields and in different form in various communities. Emotional intelligence is one of the applied topics in the field of personnel management and communication. The aim of this study is to determine the correlation between 360-degree emotional intelligence and a creativity and innovation of managers in training hospitals of Shiraz Medical Sciences University.

Research Methodology

This study is cross-sectional and 71 of the senior and middle managers at training hospitals of Shiraz Medical Sciences were selected as statistical sample. Data collection tool in this study is a questionnaire containing 107 questions and its Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.81. Data was analyzed using SPSS 16 software, utilizing t-test statistical tests and Pearson correlation.

Results

A direct correlation was observed between dimensions of emotional intelligence, i.e. self-management, communication and management were correlated with each other. Another result was a correlation between emotional intelligence, creativity and innovation. (p <0.05)

Conclusion

This study showed a two-way direct correlation between emotional intelligence and creativity and also emotional intelligence and innovation. Managers can create creativity and innovation or prevent them in employees by their performance.

Aim: The aim of the current study is to examine the role of parenting style and mental health disorders on individuals with gender dysphoria.

Material and Methods: In this study applied research method correlation and research strategies were utilized for data analysis. A total number of 123 patients with gender dysphoria waiting for sex reassignment surgery were recruited from Navidbakhsh clinic in Isfahan and Emergency Social Welfare in Shiraz. The study population was patients with gender dysphoria in Iran (19 males-to-females and 104 female-to-male) were accompanied by their mothers that gender dysphoria them diagnosed by Legal Medicine Organization and they were waiting for sex reassignment surgery from January 2016 to October 2016 have referred to these centers.

Results: The data obtained using multiple regressions to standard methods (simultaneous) using SPSS 19 software. Findings from the study showed that between authoritarian parenting style and mental disorders and permissive parenting style and mental disorders there is a negative relationship and between authoritative parenting style and mental disorders there is positive relationship.

Conclusions: Each, parenting styles have different relationship with mental disorders, which according to results the best and worst parenting style, authoritarian and authoritative styles are in order.

Background: Arthritis is one of the most common inflammatory diseases worldwide. It is characterized by symptoms such as systemic inflammation and autoantibody production. The molecular mechanisms in pathogenesis of arthritis are not fully understood. Studies show that many microorganisms, including Mycoplasmas, play a role in arthritis. The PCR method is a fast and accurate molecular method for the detection of Mycoplasma genus. The main objective of this study is the detection of Mycoplasma spp arthritis by PCR method.

Methods: In this study, 70 samples of synovial fluid collected from Shariati hospital. DNA samples were extracted by phenol-chloroform standard method. Using several Mycoplasma standard strains and 16S rRNA gene target optimized PCR test of Mycoplasma spp. Sensitivity and specificity test were performed on the basis of standard methods and then performed on the DNA extracted of samples.

Results: PCR product was amplified by 272 bp and was observed on 2% gel electrophoresis. Specificity test with DNA of other microorganisms showed 100% specificity of these primers. The limit of detection was evaluated 100 copy/reaction. From 70 samples of synovial fluid, 2 samples (3%) were positive and 68 cases (97%) were negative.

Conclusion: This study showed that a number of infectious arthritis are Mycoplasma spp at the same time, and the PCR technique can be used as a sensitive and accurate way of early detection of Mycoplasma spp arthritis.