Association between spiritual intelligence and stress, anxiety, and depression coping styles in patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy in university hospitals of Tehran University of medical science

Background: Holistic care addresses the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of the patient in which spiritual dimension plays a pivotal role in patient care. Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the association between spiritual intelligence with stress, anxiety, and depression coping styles in patients with cancer. Methods: This analytic descriptive study was carried out on 276 patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy in university hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences during 2013–2014. The participants were selected using cluster sampling. Data collection tools included patients' medical history, demographic questionnaire developed by researcher, spiritual intelligence self-report inventory questionnaire, ways of coping questionnaire, and depression, anxiety, and stress scales-42. Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to analyze the data using SPSS 20. Differences were considered significant at the P < 0.05 level. Results: There was inverse significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and stress (r = −0.268 and P < 0.001) and between spiritual intelligence and anxiety (r = −0.200 and P = 0.001) and between spiritual intelligence and depression (r = −0.317 and P = 0.000). There was a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and coping styles (P < 0.01). The highest association was observed between spiritual intelligence and problem-focused strategy or positive reevaluation strategy (P = 0.000 and r = 0.668 and P = 0.000 and r = 0.667, respectively). Conclusions: Spirituality and religion are an important source of strength for adjusting of patients to cancer and help patients to achieve the sense of meaning and purpose in the course of disease. Implications for Practice: Establishment of settings in hospitals focusing on using spiritual intelligence to improve treatment outcomes in patients with cancer

Relationship of cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine levels with war-induced posttraumatic stress disorder in fathers and their offspring

Objective: To compare afternoon serum/plasma levels of hormones in four groups: (A) veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), (B) offspring of PTSD veterans, (C) veterans without PTSD, and (D) offspring of non-PTSD veterans. Methods: Evaluation consisted of a semi-structured interview for axis I and II diagnoses, followed by measurement of afternoon serum cortisol and plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine by ELISA (Diametra) and LND (LDN Labor Diagnostika Nord GmbH & Co. KG) respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Student t, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, and nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests. Results: One hundred and sixty-eight volunteers were investigated across the four groups. The groups were similar in terms of demographic characteristics, war experience and traumatization, and psychiatric and medical conditions other than PTSD (group A was similar to group C and group B was similar to group D). Between-groups comparisons did not yield statistically significant differences. Post-hoc analyses revealed significant differences in afternoon cortisol level between the offspring of veterans with current/past history of PTSD and the offspring of veterans without a history of PTSD. Conclusion: We only found decreased cortisol levels in offspring of veterans after rearranging the groups to reflect previous history of PTSD. Further studies are required to investigate the relationship between cortisol levels and the transgenerational effects of trauma and parental PTSD. .

A review on the evidence of transgenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress disorder vulnerability

Objective: To understand the risks of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) development in the next generation of PTSD patients, we conducted a review on the biological, but not genetic, evidence of transgenerational transmission of PTSD vulnerability. Methods: Pertinent articles published from 1985 to September 2011 were searched using online academic search engines, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, ScienceDirect, OVID, PsycLIT, and SCOPUS, and a non-systematic review was conducted. Results: There is paradoxical evidence that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis changes in PTSD patients may also be evident in their offspring. This effect and biological vulnerability to PTSD may be transmitted across generations through maternal epigenetic programming during pregnancy. The samples of most studies, which were not large enough and represented the outcome of few research groups, consisted of a specific type of patients with a particular trauma. Conclusions: There is still a need to conduct studies in other geographical areas with different genetic background and larger samples considering different types of trauma other than those specified in the current literature, so as to strengthen the evidence of transgenerational transmission of PTSD vulnerability. .