Discovering the pros and cons of participation of Iranian women with substance use disorder in women's only narcotics anonymous meetings and offering strategies for harm reduction: A grounded theory study.

Women with substance use disorder participate in women's only narcotics anonymous meetings. Therefore, this study aimed to discover the advantages and disadvantages of Iranian women's participation in this type of meetings. Accordingly, this research was done in Behboud Gostaran Hamgam Women's Rehab Center in Tehran. The research method was a qualitative method of grounded theory, and samples of the research were chosen by theoretical sampling method. Data was collected using in-depth, face-to-face, unstructured interviews and nonparticipation observations. First, 4 women with substance use disorder who had referred to the center to quit addiction were interviewed. The researcher then interviewed 2 informant groups of the center's medical staff, consisting of 2 social workers and 2 mentors with long-term experience in the field of women's addiction, and at the end of each interview, the interviews were analyzed. Finally, according to theoretical sampling principles and achieving saturation, the researcher participated in the women's only narcotics anonymous meetings, which were held weekly inside the center, and took notes on the content of the sessions in relation to the purpose of the study. After each session, the notes were analyzed and finally, after participating in 4 sessions, saturation was achieved by the researcher. By analyzing the research data, the theme of pros of participating in the women's only narcotics anonymous meetings, and the theme of cons of participating in the women's only narcotics anonymous meetings were yielded. Using the research findings could enhance the quality of these meetings.

Introduce a New Intervention Model Based on Islamic Lifestyle for Decreasing the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in People at Risk: A Comparative Study.

The main purpose of the present study was designing and assessing the common lifestyle and Islamic lifestyle interventions and comparison of them. Sample of the study was thirty-nine subjects participated in a healthy lifestyle program. The Islamic group were received the Islamic healthy lifestyle program. In comparison with common, in the Islamic group the CVD risk was significantly lower; the psychological well-being was increased significantly; the psychological distress was decreased significantly; and the spiritual well-being was increased significantly. The most powerful element of Islamic lifestyle was to strengthen the spirituality that can positively affect the life.

A pilot randomized controlled trial to assess the effect of Islamic spiritual intervention and of breathing technique with heart rate variability feedback on anxiety, depression and psycho-physiologic coherence in patients after coronary artery bypass surgery.

BACKGROUND: This study investigated the effects of Islamic religious and breathing techniques with heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback therapies on HRV and psycho-physiologic coherence (resonance frequency), depression and anxiety in coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) patients. METHODS: Sixty CABG patients were chosen and randomly assigned to religious, breathing techniques and control groups. The experimental groups received 8  weeks of treatments; a 2-h session with home works in each week. The control group received only their normal hospital interventions. The groups' depression, anxiety, HRV and psycho-physiologic coherence levels were assessed before and after the interventions by DASS-21 for depression and anxiety, and em-wave desktop software for HRV and psycho-physiologic coherence. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA with Bonferroni Comparison test and descriptive tests in SPSS software. RESULTS: The findings showed that there were significant differences in psycho-physiologic coherence (HRV), depression and anxiety scores among the three groups in the post-tests. In fact, depression and anxiety were reduced more in the religious group, while psycho-physiologic coherence raised more in the breathing with the HRV feedback group. CONCLUSION: The results showed that both Islamic religious and breathing techniques with HRV biofeedback therapies can be used in rehabilitation programs for CABG patients in clinics and hospitals.

WordCommentsAnalyzer: A windows software tool for qualitative research.

There is a lack of free software that provides a professional and smooth experience in text editing and markup for qualitative data analysis. Word processing software like Microsoft Word provides a good editing experience, allowing the researcher to effortlessly add comments to text portions. However, organizing the keywords and categories in the comments can become a more difficult task when the amount of data increases. We present WordCommentsAnalyzer, a software tool that is written in C# using .NET Framework and OpenXml, which helps a qualitative researcher to organize codes when using Microsoft Word as the primary text markup software. WordCommentsAnalyzer provides an effective user interface to count codes, to organize codes in a code hierarchy, and to see various data extracts belonging to each code. We illustrate how to use the software by conducting a preliminary content analysis on Tweets with the #successfulaging hashtag. We hope this open-source software will facilitate qualitative data analysis by researchers who are interested in using Word for this purpose.

Psychometric Properties of Farsi Version of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (Ollendick, 1983), namely the FSSC-FA, in a sample of Iranian children and adolescents (N = 394, 206 girls) aged 9-11:11 years. The internal consistency coefficient was found to range from .79 to .96 for total and subscale scores. The authors used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to determine the factor structure of the FSSC-FA. The results showed that a 71-item, six-factor model provided a satisfactory fit for the structure of the FSSC-FA (RMSEA = .07, 90% CIs [.068, .072], CFI = .94, NNFI = .94, χ2/df = 2.94). With regard to gender and age differences in fears of the present sample, girls typically reported more fears than boys (Cohen's d = .28, 95% CIs [.08, .48], p < .001), but differences between older and younger participants were modest. The study also reported most common fears in the sample which were very similar to those reported by other studies except one item being specific to the Iranian population. Bearing in mind the limitations discussed, the results generally show that the FSSC-FA scores are valid and reliable to assess fears in Iranian youth.

Psychometric properties of Farsi version of the revised fear survey schedule for children

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (Ollendick, 1983), namely the FSSC-FA, in a sample of Iranian children and adolescents (N = 394, 206 girls) aged 9-11:11 years. The internal consistency coefficient was found to range from .79 to .96 for total and subscale scores. The authors used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to determine the factor structure of the FSSC-FA. The results showed that a 71-item, six-factor model provided a satisfactory fit for the structure of the FSSC-FA (RMSEA = .07, 90% CIs [.068, .072], CFI = .94, NNFI = .94, χ2/df = 2.94). With regard to gender and age differences in fears of the present sample, girls typically reported more fears than boys (Cohen's d = .28, 95% CIs [.08, .48], p < .001), but differences between older and younger participants were modest. The study also reported most common fears in the sample which were very similar to those reported by other studies except one item being specific to the Iranian population. Bearing in mind the limitations discussed, the results generally show that the FSSC-FA scores are valid and reliable to assess fears in Iranian youth (AU)

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Sexual desire in Iranian female university students: role of marital satisfaction and sex guilt.

OBJECTIVE: To determine association between sexual desire and marital satisfaction and sex guilt among a sample of Iranian female university students. METHODS: The data presented here were obtained from a total of 192 married Iranian female university students who were selected via a multi-cluster sampling method from universities of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad. The subjects' sociodemographic data, marital satisfaction (using ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire), sex guilt (using Mosher Revised Sex-Guilt Inventory), and sexual desire (using Hurlbert Index of Sexual Desire) were gathered. Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis methods were used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Findings showed there are significant relationships between sexual desire and marital satisfaction (r = 0.51, p < 0.01) and also between sexual desire and sex guilt (r = -0.44, p < 0.01). Also marital satisfaction and sex guilt were able to predict 31 percent of the variance of sexual desire. CONCLUSION: Marital satisfaction and sex guilt are two factors that significantly affect fluctuations in sexual desire of Iranian female university students.

Relationship between left ventricular ejection fraction and depression following myocardial infarction: an original article.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine the association between left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and incidence of depression following the myocardial infarction (MI). METHODS: In a prospective study, 176 patients aged 32-84 years with the mean age of 56 years (SD = 10.05) with a definitive diagnosis of myocardial infarction and admitted to one of the coronary care units (CCU) of Isfahan during April to August 2006 were selected through consecutive sampling method. The demographic and medical characteristics were collected by their medical record and also the results of the LVEF assessment of the patients were obtained through echocardiography or angiography following the myocardial infarction. Thereafter, the patients were given Beck Depression Inventory for the primary care (BDI-PC) in three months after myocardial infarction. The collected data were analyzed during the hospitalization and follow-up periods using logistic regression method. RESULTS: The findings indicated that left ventricular dysfunction identified by the Left ventricular ejection fraction index was significantly correlated with depression three months after the myocardial infarction (P < 0.01). In addition, the exploratory model (which only includes LVEF variable) had the predictive validity of 64.8% with 55.7% sensitivity and 72.1% specificity. CONCLUSION: Left ventricular dysfunction is associated with increased risk of depression following the myocardial infarction.

Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of Type D Personality Scale (DS14).

OBJECTIVE: Type D personality is based on negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI). The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Persian version of 14-item Type D personality scale (DS14). METHODS: The study included 191 normal participants and 176 patients with myocardial infarction (MI). They all filled out the Persian version of DS14, containing 7-item NA and SI subscales; 71 normal subjects completed the neuroticism and extroversion subscales of Eysenck questionnaire. Besides, 71 participants filled out the DS14 twice over a 2-month period. RESULTS: In this study, 35.8 % of MI patients and 24.6% of healthy people were classified as Type D. Factor analysis of Persian version of DS14 yielded the two-factor structure; all of the NA and SI items loaded between 0.65 to 0.80 in patients and 0.48 to 0.79 in healthy people on their corresponding factor. Test-retest stability of the NA and the SI subscales were 0.86 and 0.77 respectively over a 2-month period. High internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha coefficient has been found to be 0.84 in patients and 0.87 in healthy people for the NA sub-scale and 0.86 in patients and 0.75 in healthy people for the SI sub-scale. The construct validity of NA and SI sub scales were confirmed against neuroticism (r = 0.65) and extroversion (r = -0.62) subscales of Eysenck questionnaire respectively. CONCLUSION: Persian version of DS14 is an acceptable, reliable and valid measure of dimensions of Type D personality.