2023 CiteScore: 4
pISSN: 1735-4587
eISSN: 2008-2215
Editor-in-Chief:
Mohammad Reza Mohammadi, MD.
This journal is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Vol 2 No 1 (2007)
Articles
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Human beings have always experienced disasters. A disaster may be brief,but its psychological effects may last for many years. These psychological effects are increasingly well documented.Disasters affect not only those immediately involved, but also those whoknow the victims. This is perhaps particularly so when the victims arechildren. Commonly when adults hear news of disasters they ask first: What about the children? Of course, typically it is worse for the parents.In this article the definition and classification of disaster and the effects ofdisaster on survivors and their relatives will be discussed.
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Objective: Parents are believed to be among the most influential adults who have a deterministic role in the success of interventional programs on adolescents' reproductive health. The aim of this study is to describe parents' perceptions and attitudes towards adolescent reproductive needs, experiences and associated factors.
Method: A population-based study of 539 parents of adolescent boys, aged 15-18 in Tehran was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire. bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the factors associated with parents' attitudes and their reports of adolescent heterosexual relationships.
Results: Higher education, higher income, access to satellite programs and internet were associated with a liberal attitude among parents. Some demographic factors including adolescents' age, lack of adolescents' endorsement to religion, access to satellite programs, parents' drinking, and various family factors such as poor parent-adolescent relationship, conflict, parental low valuation on education, parents' low endorsement to morals, difficult parent-adolescent communication on important issues and finally easy communication about sex, were all among the factors associated with more frequent reports of having a girlfriend over the last year for the adolescent males. Parents' reports on their adolescents' sexual relationships with the opposite sex highlighted a significant gap with the figure reported for the adolescents aged 15-18 in a preceding study in 2002(3% vs. 28%).
Conclusion: Parents should be advised to build a good relationship with teens, to maintain a close parent-teen communication, and to discuss morals and values with teens . -
Objective: The purpose of this study is to compare the executive functions children and adolescents who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with normal children.
Method: Twenty children with ADHD were compared to 19 healthy children terms of some executive functions using the computerized version of Tower London, Continuous Performance Test (CPT), and Stroop Color Test.
Results: In 'Tower of London', the performance of children with ADHD was worse than normal children (p<0.05). In Continuous Performance Test, the commission errors in children with ADHD were significantly more than the normal group (p<0.01). In Stroop Test, the time spent to name the colors was significantly higher in ADHD group. A significant correlation was also found between the performance of children on Tower of London and CPT (P<0.05).
Conclusions: This study demonstrates that children and adolescents who suffer from ADHD have some impairment of executive functions, particularly planning and inhibition to response, but not in attention. -
Objective: Quality of life (QOL) assessment has been employed increasingly to evaluate outcome among patients with chronic medical conditions. Such assessment could be adversely affected by psychiatric disorders, co existing with such a medical condition.
Method: A cross sectional study of 251 out-patients with diabetes mellitus was done at a Nigerian University Teaching Hospital using the Composite Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) for psychiatric assessment and the World Health Organisation Quality of Life brief version (WHOQOL-BREF) to evaluate the QOL.
Results: Fifty (20%) of the 251 respondents met the ICD-10 criteria for definite psychiatric diagnosis. Depression accounted for 9.6% while twenty-six (10.4%) had anxiety disorder. Of the 35 respondents who performed poorly on the overall quality of life, 17(48.57%) had psychiatric diagnosis; 9 were depressed and 8 had anxiety disorder. 39 (15.5%) scored poor on the physical health domain. 21(53.8%) of the 39 respondents with poor score had psychiatric diagnosis: 13 had depression while 8 had anxiety disorder. On domain 1 (physical health), 51 (20.3%) scored poor. Twenty-eight (54.9%) of the poor scorers had psychiatric diagnosis, 20 were depressed while 8 had anxiety. 51 (20.3%) scored poor on psychological domain (domain 2) twenty-eight (54.9%) of the poor scorers had psychiatric diagnosis, 20 of which were depressed while 8 had anxiety. 34 (13.5%) scored poor on social relations (domain 3). 19 (55.9%) of those who scored poor had psychiatric disorder and the diagnosis was depression.
Conclusions: Physicians need to increase their surveillance of psychiatric co-morbidity in diabetes mellitus and collaborate with psychiatrists for a more effective liaison to improve the quality of life of patients with diabetes. -
Objectives: Culture may place a differential emphasis on particular emotions. The aim of this study is to find the most frequent symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder in Tehran.
Method: 509 patients were recruited from 5 treatment settings. The sample was used from the project of assessing psychometric properties of CIDI in the Iranian population. The patients were evaluated by conducting clinical interviews and using DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) for major depressive disorder.
Results: Depressed mood (98.7%), sleep change (92.1%) and, fatigue / energy loss (89.4%) were the three highest-ranking symptoms. As cognitive factors, guiltiness and worthlessness were among the lowest ranking symptoms. There were no significant differences between men and women in frequency of symptoms with the exception of suicidal thoughts. Men had significantly higher suicidal thoughts than women. (P: 0. 01)
Conclusion: Data were presented on the depressive symptomatology in population of Tehran. Key findings included a high rate of somatic symptoms in patients who suffered from MDD in this population. -
Objective: Nicotine dependence has been identified as a critical health problem. This study assesses the prevalence and motivation of smoking among Iranian junior and senior students. Methods: A cross sectional study was performed using a questionnaire. In addition to data on frequency, motivation, initiation and cessation, this questionnaire included Fagerstrom items for nicotine dependency. The census method was used for sampling. Thus, the questionnaire was distributed to all high school junior and senior students of Kerman. Results: 3072 students participated in the study. Among them, 4.9% were nicotine dependent, 6.4% had used it occasionally during the last six months and 11.5% had used it at least once in their life. Out of all the cigarette users, 80.6% had experienced smoking before the age of 15 with 9.098.52 cigarette per day. Boys smoked significantly more than girls. More than 38% of the students had a history of smoking cessation. The most common motivations for smoking among the students have been identified as smoking of the peer group and the belief that smoking is fashionable. Conclusions: The motivation and gender difference in smoking were similar to the general population. The rate of nicotine dependency was less than other parts of the country. However, the age of smoking initiation was in a decreasing trend and similar to other parts of the country. High school stage is a very critical period for adolescents' smoking. Therefore, for the provision of more social skills trainings and behavioral therapies, providing information for decision makers is recommended.
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Objective: To translate the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV axisI disorders (SCID-I) into Persian (Farsi) and to adapt this instrument for the Iranian culture.
Method: The SCID was translated into Persian using an elaborate procedure to achieve a satisfactory cross-cultural equivalent. This included forward translation by bilingual (English/Persian) translators, discussion and revision of the translation in an expert panel of bilingual mental health professionals, pilot assessment on a small sample of Persian-speaking patients, back-translation into English and comparison with the original SCID. In addition, understandability and acceptability of the translated items were assessed in 299 patients in three psychiatric hospitals in Tehran, Iran.
Results: Some adaptations were made to bring about cross-cultural comparability, especially with regard to conceptual differences which led to difficulties in transferring some psychiatric concepts from English to Persian. The SCID questions were generally understandable and acceptable for the Iranian patients.
Conclusion: The SCID was translated into Persian in a multi-stage process to ensure a satisfactory cross-cultural equivalent.
