The effect of the emotion regulation training on the resilience of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia: a parallel randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia is the most severe mental chronic disabling disease that the majority of the patients need constant care in a variety of aspects. Regarding the role of family caregivers in taking care of these patients, caregivers need to be resilient, in addition to other psychological traits, to adapt to the circumstance. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the emotion regulation training on the resilience of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia in southeastern Iran. METHODS: The study was a parallel randomized controlled trial. Seventy caregivers of patients with schizophrenia were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to an emotion regulation training group and a control group. The intervention group received eight 90-min training sessions (one session weekly) about emotion regulation. The participants completed the Conner-Davidson resilience scale before and one month after the intervention. RESULTS: The mean scores of the resilience increased in the control and intervention groups at the end of the study. A significant difference was found between the two groups (p < 0.001). At the beginning of the study, the mean score of the resilience was 59.94 in the control group and 51.97 in the intervention group. However, the mean score of the resilience in the control group was 61.28 after the intervention, which was not significant, but it was 69.08 in the intervention group, which was significant. A significant difference was observed between two groups in the mean scores (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of this study, cognitive and metacognitive skills of emotion regulation can be suggested as one of the methods for increasing the psychological well-being of schizophrenia patients' caregivers. The increase of mental well-being and resilience of caregivers can help them better manage a patient with schizophrenia. Trial registration IRCT registration number: IRCT2017061733997N2, Registration date: 2017-08-16, 1396/05/25, Registration timing: prospective, https://en.irct.ir/trial/26116.

The Effect of Emotion Regulation Training on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Family Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Schizophrenia is the most severe chronic disabling psychiatric disorder that needs long term care in various aspects. Therefore, the family's emotional atmosphere caused by the disease affects the condition of the patients' caregivers. This study aimed to investigate the effect of emotional regulation training on stress, anxiety, and depression in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. The study was a randomized controlled trial. Seventy caregivers of patients with schizophrenia randomly assigned to a group that received emotion regulation training and a control group. The intervention group was trained about emotion regulation during eight 90-min sessions. The participants completed the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales-21 questionnaire before and one month after the intervention. The results showed that stress, anxiety and depression scores significantly reduced in the intervention group compared to the control group. Emotional regulation training with cognitive methods has significantly reduced the anxiety, stress, and depression of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.

Stereological estimation of granule cell number and purkinje cell volume in the cerebellum of noise-exposed young rat.

In spite of the existing reports on behavioural and biochemical changes related to the cerebellum due to noise stress, not much is known about the effect of noise stress on the neuronal changes in the cerebellum. The present study aims at investigating the effects from one week noise exposure on granule cell number and Purkinje cell volume within the neonate rat cerebellum. 15-day-old male Wistar rats were randomly divided into noise exposed (NE) and control groups (n=8 in each group). NE rats exposed to loud noise (100 dB/30 min/3 times per day) during the third postnatal week. One cerebellar half was selected at random for estimating the volume of the cerebellar layers and neuronal quantifications and the other was used for estimating individual somal volume of Purkinje cells. Cavalieri's principle, physical disector and nucleator methods were employed respectively for unbiased estimation of the volumes of the cerebellar layers, the numerical density of neurons and the individual volume of Purkinje cells. Results of this study show that noise stress significantly decreases the volume of granule layer together with decreased numerical density and total number of granule cells in the cerebellum. Furthermore, a decrease in somal volume of Purkinje cells was found in NE rats. These results, for the first time, demonstrate an effect of noise stress on the granule cell number and individual volume of Purkinje cells in rat cerebellum.

Stereological analysis of cornu ammonis in prenatally stressed rats: a heuristic neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE(S): The hippocampus has been implicated in pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Prenatal stress is a contributing risk factor for a wide variety of neuropsychiatric diseases including schizophrenia. This study examined long-term effects of prenatal restraint stress on the stereological parameters in the Cornu Ammonis (CA) of adult male rats as an animal model of schizophrenia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Wistar pregnant dams in experimental group were stressed in a cylindrical Plexiglas restrainer daily for 1 hr during last week of gestation. Controls remained in the animal room and were exposed only to normal animal room conditions. At 2 months of age, the volume of the pyramidal cell layer of the CA, the numerical density and the somal volume of the respective neurons were assessed in the male offspring generated from stressed and control pregnancies. Cavalieri's principle, physical disector and nucleator were applied for stereological analyses. RESULTS: This study showed that prenatal stress significantly decreased the volume of CA3 pyramidal cell layer and the individual somal volume of CA3 pyramidal neurons. However, there were no markedly differences in the numerical density, total number of CA3 pyramidal neurons and stereological parameters in CA1 of prenatally stressed and control animals. CONCLUSION: These data indicate that prenatal stress exposure induced neuronal changes in the CA3 subfield of hippocampus which are similar to what is observed in schizophrenia.