Why Do Iranian Preschool-Aged Children Spend too Much Time in Front of Screens? A Preliminary Qualitative Study.

There is evidence that Iranian preschool children are increasingly spending their time in front of screens (screen time: ST; time spent with any screen such as TVs, computers, tablets, smartphones, game consoles, or video games), but few studies have explored the possible causes of such an increase. Given this, the present study aimed to qualitatively explore determinants of excessive ST in Iranian children. To this end, parents of preschool children were interviewed, and their answers were qualitatively clustered to identify additional important factors. Key informant interviews were conducted with parents of preschool children in Tehran (Iran). A semi-structured interview was developed to assess child and family life, daily routine, family rules, family interactions, and home climate as possible contributing factors to ST. Parents' audiotaped statements were transcripted verbatim, coded, and clustered into main themes using thematic analysis with the MaxQda® software. A total of 20 parents of children aged 2 to 7 were interviewed, and a total of 6 key themes and 28 subthemes were extracted from their interviews. The results of the analysis identified a broad range of both independent and interrelated factors leading to the development and maintenance of ST behaviors among preschool children. Our findings indicate that the central concept is the family. Considering screen-related behaviors, family life encompasses parental health literacy (e.g., parenting pattern, monitoring standards, thoughtful parenting), family psychological atmosphere (e.g., presence of parents, family norms, parent-parent and parent-child interaction, congruency/incongruency of parents with each other) and the digital structure of the home. The child's and parents' actions and characteristics can influence family interactions. A child's and parent's behavior is also influenced by social/cultural factors. Parents' behaviors and attitudes, family communications, and interactions contribute to healthy ST habits in children. It is not possible to examine the child's behavior without considering the family and the dominant environment, since the behavior of family members as a whole affects each family member. Given this, interventions should make parents aware of their role and responsibilities in reducing children's ST and consider the family system as a whole, and interventions also can benefit from considering the parental perceptions of children's behaviors.

Personality-Based Emotion Recognition Using EEG Signals with a CNN-LSTM Network.

The accurate detection of emotions has significant implications in healthcare, psychology, and human-computer interaction. Integrating personality information into emotion recognition can enhance its utility in various applications. The present study introduces a novel deep learning approach to emotion recognition, which utilizes electroencephalography (EEG) signals and the Big Five personality traits. The study recruited 60 participants and recorded their EEG data while they viewed unique sequence stimuli designed to effectively capture the dynamic nature of human emotions and personality traits. A pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) was used to extract emotion-related features from the raw EEG data. Additionally, a long short-term memory (LSTM) network was used to extract features related to the Big Five personality traits. The network was able to accurately predict personality traits from EEG data. The extracted features were subsequently used in a novel network to predict emotional states within the arousal and valence dimensions. The experimental results showed that the proposed classifier outperformed common classifiers, with a high accuracy of 93.97%. The findings suggest that incorporating personality traits as features in the designed network, for emotion recognition, leads to higher accuracy, highlighting the significance of examining these traits in the analysis of emotions.

Predicting the Social-Emotional Competence Based on Childhood Trauma, Internalized Shame, Disability/Shame Scheme, Cognitive Flexibility, Distress Tolerance and Alexithymia in an Iranian Sample Using Bayesian Regression.

The purpose of this study was to predict Social Emotional Competence based on childhood trauma, internalized shame, disability/shame scheme, cognitive flexibility, distress tolerance, and alexithymia in an Iranian sample using Bayesian regression. The participants in this research were a sample of 326 (85.3% female and 14.7% male) people living in Tehran in 2021 who were selected by convenience sampling through online platforms. The survey assessments included demographic characteristics (age and gender), presence of childhood trauma, social-emotional competence, internalized shame, the Toronto Alexithymia scales, Young's measure of disability/shame together with measures of cognitive flexibility and distress tolerance. The results from Bayesian regression and Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) indicated that internalized shame, cognitive flexibility and distress tolerance can be predictive of Social Emotional Competence. These results suggested that Social Emotional Competence can be explained by some important personality factors.

Extracting a Novel Emotional EEG Topographic Map Based on a Stacked Autoencoder Network.

Emotion recognition based on brain signals has increasingly become attractive to evaluate human's internal emotional states. Conventional emotion recognition studies focus on developing machine learning and classifiers. However, most of these methods do not provide information on the involvement of different areas of the brain in emotions. Brain mapping is considered as one of the most distinguishing methods of showing the involvement of different areas of the brain in performing an activity. Most mapping techniques rely on projection and visualization of only one of the electroencephalogram (EEG) subband features onto brain regions. The present study aims to develop a new EEG-based brain mapping, which combines several features to provide more complete and useful information on a single map instead of common maps. In this study, the optimal combination of EEG features for each channel was extracted using a stacked autoencoder (SAE) network and visualizing a topographic map. Based on the research hypothesis, autoencoders can extract optimal features for quantitative EEG (QEEG) brain mapping. The DEAP EEG database was employed to extract topographic maps. The accuracy of image classifiers using the convolutional neural network (CNN) was used as a criterion for evaluating the distinction of the obtained maps from a stacked autoencoder topographic map (SAETM) method for different emotions. The average classification accuracy was obtained 0.8173 and 0.8037 in the valence and arousal dimensions, respectively. The extracted maps were also ranked by a team of experts compared to common maps. The results of quantitative and qualitative evaluation showed that the obtained map by SAETM has more information than conventional maps.

Proof of Concept for the Autobiographical Memory Flexibility (MemFlex) Intervention for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Autobiographical memory distortions are a key feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial (N = 43), we evaluated an autobiographical memory flexibility intervention, MemFlex. We aimed to determine whether the mechanism-focused intervention, which aims to improve autobiographical memory processes, may also affect other cognitive predictors of PTSD and potentially reduce PTSD symptoms in Iranian trauma survivors diagnosed with PTSD. Results indicated significant, moderate to large between-groups effect sizes in favor of MemFlex, relative to wait-list control, for the targeted cognitive mechanism of autobiographical memory flexibility and PTSD symptoms. A large, significant effect was also observed on maladaptive posttraumatic cognitions-a strong predictor of PTSD prognosis, which is a key target of high-intensity cognitive therapies for PTSD. Findings support future completion of a scaled-up trial to evaluate treatment efficacy of MemFlex for PTSD to determine whether MemFlex may offer a culturally adaptive, low-cost, low-intensity intervention able to improve cognitive mechanisms of PTSD.

Impaired Autobiographical Memory Flexibility in Iranian Trauma Survivors With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Reduced ability to retrieve specific autobiographical memories is a well-defined feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and science-driven interventions have emerged to improve memory specificity and thereby symptoms. However, research in depressed samples indicates that the ability to flexibly move between retrieval of specific and general memory types (i.e., memory flexibility) may more accurately conceptualize autobiographical memory deficits in emotional disturbance. In this study, we evaluated memory specificity and memory flexibility in Iranian trauma survivors (N = 63) with and without PTSD relative to community control participants. Trauma-exposed participants had experienced a serious road-traffic accident. Results indicated that individuals with PTSD experienced reduced memory specificity and memory flexibility relative to trauma-exposed participants and community control participants. A small sample size limits the strength of conclusions, although good statistical power was obtained. Findings suggest that reduced memory flexibility may be a transdiagnostic marker of emotional disturbance and support further development of memory flexibility interventions for PTSD.

Interventions for Physician Burnout: A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews.

Occupational burnout is a common syndrome among physicians, and several individual-directed and organization-directed interventions have been implemented to reduce it. Until now, several review studies have tried to identify and introduce the most appropriate interventions. The aim of this article was to systematically review systematic review studies of interventions for physician burnout to evaluate and summarize their results, and ultimately guide researchers to select appropriate interventions. A search was conducted to find review studies and systematic reviews in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Medline, Google Scholar, PubMed, and PsycINFO. Two reviewers independently selected and evaluated the studies based on inclusion criteria. Four of seven obtained review studies and systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. These studies have reviewed individual-directed and organization-directed interventions intended to reduce burnout among medical students, interns, physicians, residents, and fellows. Various studies of the effectiveness of individual- and organization-directed interventions have obtained different results. This research has shown that reaching conclusions about effective interventions (individual- or organization-directed) for physician burnout is not easy and that a number of mediating or moderating variables probably influence the effectiveness of these interventions. Therefore, it is necessary to understand approaches and interventions for the prevention or reduction of physician burnout to fill the gaps in research. In addition, review studies are required to be more precise in choosing their criteria to find more accurate results.

Sexual Dysfunctional Beliefs Questionnaire (SDBQ): Translation and Psychometric Properties of the Iranian Version.

INTRODUCTION: The sexual dysfunctional beliefs questionnaire (SDBQ) is a validated measure for assessing dysfunctional sexual beliefs. AIMS: The aim of this study was to translate and validate the SDBQ to Iranian context. METHODS: In order to translate the questionnaire from English into Persian, a forward-backward procedure was applied. After linguistic validation, the psychometric properties of the Iranian version were assessed for both men and women. A total of 387 participants (226 women and 161 men) completed the SDBQ. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: A principle component analysis with varimax rotation was performed for both the male and female samples. Reliability was evaluated by calculating Cronbach's alpha (internal consistency) and test-retest coefficients (intraclass correlation coefficient). RESULTS: The results from the principle component analysis identified six factors in the female version: sexual conservatism and female sexual passivity, beliefs about masturbation, body image beliefs, sexual desire and pleasure as a sin, age-related beliefs, and denying affection primacy. In the male version six factors were also identified: sex as an abuse of men's power, beliefs related to women's satisfaction, sexual conservatism, female sexual power, "macho" beliefs, and restrictive attitudes toward sex. Findings support the original six-factor solution for the male sample. For the female sample, although a six-factor solution was found, original motherhood-related beliefs were included in the sexual conservatism and female sexual passivity factor, and a new dimension has emerged, related to masturbation beliefs. Additionally, results indicated that the SDBQ had good internal consistency and test-retest reliability in both male and female versions. CONCLUSION: Current findings support the reliability and validity of the SDBQ in an Iranian sample and suggest its applicability to assess sexual beliefs in both clinical samples and the general population in Iran.

The effect of psychotherapy in improving physical and psychiatric symptoms in patients with functional dyspepsia.

OBJECTIVE: Functional Dyspepsia (FD) is a common symptom of upper gastrointestinal discomfort. Few data are available on the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of dyspeptic syndromes. This study assesses whether brief core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) psychoanalytic psychotherapy improves gastrointestinal and psychiatric symptoms in patients with functional dyspepsia. METHODS: A randomized, controlled trial was planned in two educational hospitals in city of Babol. Forty-nine patients with FD were randomly assigned to receive standard medication treatment with CCRT psychotherapy (24 participants) or standard medication treatment alone (25 participants). The participants completed the Patient Assessment of Upper Gastrointestinal Symptom Severity Index (PAGI-SYM) and Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) questionnaires before the trial, after the treatment and at 1 and 12-month follow-ups. The mixed-effects (regression) model was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The results showed that CCRT psychotherapy improved all of the FD symptoms (heartburn/regurgitation, nausea/vomiting, fullness, bloating, upper abdominal pain, and lower abdominal pain) and many of the psychiatric symptoms (depression, anxiety, somatization, interpersonal sensitivity and paranoid ideation) after the treatment and at 1-month and 12-month follow-ups. CONCLUSION: Brief CCRT psychoanalytic psychotherapy can serve as an effective intervention for promoting gastrointestinal and psychiatric symptoms in patients with functional dyspepsia.

The effect of problem-focused coping strategy training on psychological symptoms of mothers of children with down syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety is one of the most common reactions that parents show while understanding their children's intellectual disability due to Down syndrome. Anxiety leads parents not to develop appropriate relations with their children, subsequently their psychological health are at risk. The present study was aimed to determine the effect of problem-focused coping strategy training on psychological symptoms of mothers with Down child. METHODS: This was an experimental study with pretest and posttest design with case and control group. Sixty-four mothers were selected randomly from Iranian Down Syndrome Charity Society. They completed Symptoms Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). They were assigned to experimental and control groups in equal. Experimental group participated in 12 training sessions (once a week; 60 minutes for each session) and received problem-focused coping strategy program, but control group did not. After 12(th) session, all subjects completed SCL-90-R again. Analysis of covariance was used for analyzing the data. RESULTS: There was a significant difference (P<0.01) between experimental and control group according to psychological symptoms and its components (phobia, depression, paranoid thoughts, psychosis, somatic complaints, interpersonal sensitivity, obsession-compulsion, anxiety and aggression) after participation in intervention sessions. CONCLUSION: There was a significant decrease in psychological symptoms, phobia, depression, paranoid thoughts, psychosis, somatic complaints, interpersonal sensitivity, obsession-compulsion, anxiety and aggression of experimental group. Our findings showed that problem-focused coping strategy-training program led to improve family's perception towards the child and subsequently promote of mental health of mothers with Down children.

Long Term Effects of Mindfulness on Quality of life in Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the long-term effects of mindfulness-based therapy on improving life quality of patients with irritable bowel syndrome. METHOD: This was an experimental study including 24 patients (12 from each group) with IBS syndrome were selected based on the ROMEIII criteria and were randomly placed in the test and control groups. In both groups, the scales of the IBS-QOL34 Questionnaire were applied as assessment tool. Experiment group was subjected to the MFT (mindfulness-based therapy), while the control group received no intervention. After the two-month follow up, both groups were once again evaluated through the IBS-QOL34 scales. RESULTS: There is not significant difference between trial and control group in starting of the study in demographic and quality of life status. The findings of covariance analysis revealed that the difference between the experiment and the control groups at follow-up was significant (p = 0.01). The results showed that the MFT has long-term effects on the life quality of patients suffering from IBS. CONCLUSION: The MFT could be considered as a new, effective and stable method in psychotherapy, particularly in psychosomatic disorders such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

A randomized controlled trial of brief psychoanalytic psychotherapy in patients with functional dyspepsia.

Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a common cause of upper gastrointestinal symptoms and discomfort. The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of brief core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) psychoanalytic psychotherapy on changing gastrointestinal symptoms, alexithymia, and defense mechanisms in patients with FD. In a randomized controlled trial study, 49 patients with FD were randomly assigned to medical treatment with brief psychodynamic therapy (24 subjects) or medical treatment alone (25 subjects). Gastrointestinal symptoms, defense mechanisms, and alexithymia were assessed before the trial, after treatment, and at 1- and 12-month follow-ups. The results showed that brief psychodynamic therapy improved all of the gastrointestinal symptoms, including heartburn, nausea, fullness, bloating, upper abdominal pain, and lower abdominal pain, after treatment and at two follow-ups. The CCRT therapy significantly improved many psychological symptoms, including mature defenses, neurotic defenses, immature defenses, difficulties in identifying feelings, difficulties in describing feelings, and total alexithymia score. In conclusion, brief psychodynamic therapy is a reliable method to improve gastrointestinal symptoms, mature defenses, and alexithymia scores in patients with functional dyspepsia.

Health related quality of life among adolescents with premenstrual disorders: a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Premenstrual disorders usually refer to premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). This study was designed to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in a sample of Iranian adolescents with premenstrual disorders. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study. A sample of adolescent schoolgirls aged between 14 and 19 years were included in the study. Premenstrual disorders were indicated according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Health-related quality of life was measured using the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). The data were analyzed in a descriptive fashion and were compared among subgroups of the study sample. RESULTS: In all 602 female students were studied. All students reported at least one premenstrual symptom. Of these, 224 (37.2%) met the diagnostic criteria for premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Comparing the SF-36 scores between female students with and without PMDD, it was found that there were significant differences between these two groups in all measures (P < 0.001) except for physical functioning (P = 0.274). These differences were more evident on role emotional, role physical, social functioning and bodily pain. CONCLUSION: The study findings affirm the fact that adolescents with premenstrual disorders suffer from poor health-related quality of life. In order to improve quality of life in female adolescents appropriate support should be provided for this population especially for those who suffer from more severe premenstrual disorders.

Validity and reliability of the multidimensional health locus of control scale for college students.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present study was to assess the validity and reliability of Form A of Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scales in Iran. Health locus of control is one of the most widely measured parameters of health belief for the planning of health education programs. METHODS: 496 university students participated in this study. The reliability coefficients were calculated in three different methods: test-retest, parallel forms and Cronbach alpha. In order to survey validity of the scale we used three methods including content validity, concurrent validity and construct validity. RESULTS: We established the content validity of the Persian translation by translating (and then back-translating) each item from the English version into the Persian version. The concurrent validity of the questionnaire, as measured by Levenson's IPC scale was .57 (P < .001), .49 (P < .01) and .53 (P < .001) for IPC, respectively. Exploratory principal components analysis supported a three-factor structure that items loading adequately on each factor. Moreover, the approximate orthogonal of the dimensions were obtained through correlation analyses. In addition, the reliability results were acceptable, too. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the reliability and validity of Persian Form A of MHLC was acceptable and respectable and is suggested as an applicable criterion for similar studies in Iran.