Development of a stress scale for pregnant women in the South Asian context: the A-Z Stress Scale

Stress in pregnancy can lead to low-birth-weight and preterm babies and to psychological consequences such as anxiety and depression during pregnancy and the puerperium. Previous scales to measure stress contain items that overlap with the symptoms of pregnancy. A stress scale was developed based on in-depth interviews with pregnant women in Pakistan. Construct validity, test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability were carried out. Cronbach alpha was 0.82 for the 30 short-listed items, with item-total correlations of 0.2-0.8. Multidimensional scaling determined 2 dimensions: socioenvironmental hassles and chronic illnesses. This was the first scale developed for pregnant women based on stressors in a developing country in South Asia

[Prevalence and cause of smoking in the medicine students]

Young smokers have been more exposed to great stresses and mishaps in their lives, compared to non-smokers. This study was aimed to determine the prevalence of tendency to cigarette smoking and its reasons among medical students. This cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study was carried out on the population of medical students in Tehran. Two hundred and eighty students were selected by classified randomization from the students in term one, four and seven [students in each term was considered a separate group]. Inclusion criteria were the same for all groups. The questionnaire comprised 45 questions including 29 common questions, 5 questions for smokers, 3 questions for recreational smokers, 7 questions for ex-smokers, and 2 questions for non-smokers. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test by SPSS-10 sofware. There was no female smoker among the students, except 5 percent of the students in term seven who had smoked recreationally. The most important reasons for cigarette smoking were for pleasure and decreasing anxiety. However, maintaining the health was the most important reason for the lack of tendency to smoking among male non-smokers. Female non-smokers had also the reason of unacceptable social impact of smoking for their disinclination. The results of current study showed that medical students are predisposed to have tendency to cigarette smoking due to psychological stresses, which are most probably related to their academic major

Study of relation between the risk of runaway girls and emotional intelligence in Mashhad

This study was conducted to discover the possible role of emotional intelligence in running away from home among female adolescents. 500 females from Mashhad high schools at local areas number 2, 5 and 7 were selected. At first the areas were chosen on cluster sampling and then 2 schools were selected randomly from each cluster. In the next stage the subjects were selected randomly based on their high school speciality and grade being obtained. All subjects completed 3 questionnaires: demographic characteristics, risk of running away from home, and emotional intelligence. Data were analysed by using Pearsonian correlation and stepwise multiple regression with risk of running away among females as dependent variable. Data indicated that negative significant correlation was found between risk of females running away and the respective variables of emotional intelligence, self regard, happiness, reality testing, emotional self-awareness, stress tolerance, flexibility, impulse control, social responsibility and problem solving. The results of regression analysis revealed reality testing, impulse control and happiness as the best predictors. This study shows that emotional intelligence components have meaningful effect on the risk of females' running away from home. Reality testing is the most salient predictor