مجله روانشناسی نظامی
پیاپی 42 (تابستان 1399)

The empathy and cognitive flexibility of the women whose husbands are disabled veterans is especially important due to special circumstances and stresses they undergo. The present study aims to investigate the impact of mindfulness-based training on the empathy and cognitive flexibility of the wives of disabled veterans.

This is a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population consisted of 25 to 40 percent of the wives of disabled veterans in Tehran, Iran in 2017. The research sample included 24 wives of disabled veteran who were randomly assigned into experimental (12 people) and control groups (12 people). They responded to the Batson Empathy Adjectives Questionnaire (1983) and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (2010). The experimental group received group-based mindfulness treatment for 8 weekly sessions, and no intervention was performed on the control group. Covariance analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups after mindfulness training on empathy and cognitive flexibility. The level of empathy and cognitive flexibility in the experimental group was significantly different from the pretest stage and that the control group (p < 0.01).

It can be concluded that mindfulness-based training promotes empathy and cognitive flexibility in the wives of the disabled veterans.

The present study was conducted to investigate illness attitude based on patient coping styles and caregiver burden. This is an applied research work, and with regard to data collection it is correlational-descriptive research. The statistical population consisted of all the disabled veterans referring to Sasan Hospital in Tehran, Iran in 2017-2018, from among whom a group of 50 people were selected as the sample according to the formula of sampling without alternative using a pre-study. The data collection instruments were three questionnaires: the Illness Attitudes Scale, the Caregiver Burden Inventory and Stress Coping Styles Questionnaire. The obtained data were analyzed, and first the research was assumed to be normal and the results indicated that the research data had a normal distribution. Based on Pearson correlation coefficient and simultaneous regression analyses in SPSS23 software at the significance level of 0.05, the results of the first hypothesis showed that time-dependent burden and emotional burden had a significant negative relationship with illness attitude. The regression results also showed that time-dependent burden and emotional burden variables can predict attitude toward illness, and also problem-oriented coping style had a significant negative relationship with attitude toward illness. Regression results further revealed that problem-oriented coping style can predict attitude toward illness. Therefore, attitude toward illness can be explained with stress coping style and caregiver burden variables.

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the meaning of life and hope with mental health and compare it in two groups of disabled veterans and cancer patients.

This is an applied study in terms of purpose, and with respect to method it is a correlational and causal-comparative study. The statistical population included all the disabled veterans admitted to Sasan Hospital who had at least one year of hospitalization and the cancer patients at Imam Khomeini Hospital. A group of 400 people was randomly selected as the sample using the Ailment Symptom Scale, the Hope Scale and the Meaning of Life Scale. The results were analyzed using correlation analysis and analysis of covariance.

The results revealed that there is an inverse, significant relationship between hope and meaning of life with the rate of the prevalence of mental disorders in the people under study (P > 0.01). It was further revealed that the level of hope of the disabled veterans and their meaning of life is significantly more positive than that of the cancer patients (P > 0.01), and the level of mental health of the disabled veterans is higher than that of the cancer patients (P > 0.01).

The existence of a significant relationship between hope and meaning of life indicates we can considerably reduce the prevalence of mental disorders among disabled veterans and cancer patients through meaning therapy and increasing hope. Also, comparative evaluations indicate that disabled veterans’ having spiritual reasons for their suffering and disability and honoring them in society can greatly affect their meaning of life and level of hope, and they can enjoy better mental health than cancer patients by gaining social support.

The aim of this study was to compare the brain-behavioral systems in soldiers with borderline personality disorder or traits and healthy soldiers.

This is a descriptive-crosssectional, causal-comparative study conducted in 2019. The first statistical population of the study included all the soldiers referring to a military psychiatric hospital who had been diagnosed to have borderline personality disorder or traits, and the second one consisted of the soldiers who were mentally healthy. The sample size in each group was 106. The samples were selected using the availability sampling method, and the required data were collected using demographic questionnaires and the Behavioral Inhibition-Activation Systems Scale. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance by SPSS Statistics 25.

The results showed that the performance of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition system was better in healthy soldiers compared to that of soldiers with borderline personality disorder or traits.

It seems that the role of brain-behavioral systems can be considered in psychological interventions for people with borderline personality disorder or traits

This study was aimed at determining the effectiveness of meaning therapy on the level of happiness and loneliness of the infertile spouses of disabled veterans. The study population included all the infertile spouses of the disabled veterans who had referred to the gynecology and obstetrics ward of Sasan Hospital in Tehran (n = 800 people). To determine the sample size according to Krejcie Morgan’s table (1972), at first 260 people were randomly selected, and they answered the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (2001) and the California Loneliness Scale (1980). From among them, 30 people who had obtained the desired scores in both questionnaires were randomly selected and then divided into an experimental group (n = 15) and a control group ((n = 15). The subjects in the experimental group received twelve ninety-minute sessions of meaning therapy while the control group did not receive any treatment. The obtained results were analyzed using MANCOVA statistical index, and it was revealed that the effect of meaning therapy on happiness and loneliness was significant at p < 0.1 level. Therefore, it was concluded that meaning therapy is effective in increasing the happiness and reducing the feeling of loneliness in the infertile spouses of disabled veterans.

Due to their stressful work conditions, police forces are always exposed to serious dangers that affect their physical and mental health. The aim of this study was to determine the fit of the structural model of the relationship between physical symptoms and stressful organizational variables mediated by personality traits in a group of police officers.

The statistical population of this study included all the male police officers in Tehran with at least three years of service in 2019, from among whom 300 people were selected using the cluster sampling method. The data collection instruments were a screening questionnaire for physical symptoms, the short form of the Iranian Police Stress Scale, the short form of the NEO Personality Questionnaire and a structured clinical interview to assess DSM-5 (SCID-5) disorders, which had acceptable validity and reliability indices. The obtained data were analyzed using structural equation method with the help of SPSS and PLS (version 2) software.

The results of the structural equation modeling confirmed the mediating role of personality traits in the relationship between stressful organizational variables and physical symptoms, and the personality traits of extraversion, dutifulness and agreeability are effective in the relationship between personality and physical symptoms. Also, the relationship between the personality traits of neuroticism, agreeability, dutifulness and openness to experience with stressful organizational variables and also the relationship between the personality traits of neuroticism and openness to experience with physical symptoms were not significant. Non-mission organizational variables had the greatest impact on physical symptoms.

Given the nature of the police job and the tensions that people face in this job, if police officers have high rates of extroversion, dutifulness and agreeability, and low neuroticism, they will adapt their responses to life events according to the stressful situations. Accordingly, they will regulate the emotions resulting from stressful organizational variables in order to provide appropriate responses to environmental demands and control tensions and stresses, and create psychological adaptation to the needs, stresses and requirements of life and can better prevent the effects of organizational stress on physical symptoms. Therefore, it can be concluded that if a person has organizational tensions, they are less likely to develop physical symptoms and have lower perception of stress if they have certain personality traits.