International Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Volume:15 Issue: 3, Autumn 2021

The present study focused on measuring the relationship between internet addiction and marital satisfaction among couples residing in Urban Bangalore. Internet addiction has attracted increasing attention in the popular media and among researchers.
A mixed method study was conducted among 104 couples residing in Urban Bangalore identified through convenient and purposive sampling. In phase 1, The Young’s Internet Addiction Test and ENRICH Marital satisfaction scale were administered on couples to measure marital satisfaction and internet addiction. In phase 2, interviews were conducted based on open ended questions developed by the researchers to identify the role of internet in relationship values, communication and happiness.
Pearson’s product moment Correlation was used for Phase 1 and thematic and content analysis for Phase 2.  The findings from Phase 1 revealed a weak correlation between marital satisfaction and Internet addiction among couples, weak negative correlation between marital satisfaction and Internet addiction in the case of wives and weak correlation between marital satisfaction and Internet addiction in husbands. The thematic analysis showed positive and negative effects of the Internet on relationship values, communication and happiness among couples.
The present study helps to understand whether a relationship exists between Internet addiction and marital satisfaction and reflects on how Internet has affected relationship values, communication and happiness among urban married couples.

Self-regulated learning facilitates resilience by controlling learning and creating self-confidence. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between self-regulation and academic resilience with the mediating role of perceived competence.
The target population of the study included under graduate students from Tehran universities during the academic year of 2019-2020. The sample consisted of 360 students who were selected through random cluster sampling. The instruments used in this study were Perceived Competence scale, Self-regulation scale, and Academic Resiliency questionnaire. The research method used in this study was casual modeling.
The results revealed that self-regulation had a direct effect on predicting academic resiliency. Also, because the total effect of self-regulation was more than its direct effect on academic resilience, a mediating role is probable. Perceived competence mediated the relationship between self-regulation and academic resilience and promoted it.
Through resilience, the educational process can be facilitated even in difficult and challenging situations and prevent academic failure and boredom.

Failure to satisfy the basic psychological needs may cause Internet addiction for the adolescents. Heterogeneity of outcomes may originate from individual characteristics such as coping style. Therefore, the present study aimed to look at whether the problem-oriented coping style can play a moderating role in the relationship between basic psychological needs and Internet addiction.
This research was a descriptive-correlational study. For this purpose, 361 students were selected from Yasouj University by cluster random sampling. Three questionnaires were used to collect data: Basic Psychological Needs Questionnaire, Internet Addiction Questionnaire, and Stress Coping Strategies Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and the Partial Least Squares (PLS) were used to process the data.
According to the findings of the present study, there was a negative relationship between satisfying the basic psychological needs and Internet addiction. The results also showed problem-oriented coping style as a moderating and influential variable between the basic psychological needs and Internet addiction.
Overall, the most important contribution of this study is to explain a correlation and moderation model that is consistent with both stress management and self-determination theory. As a result, interventions based on self-determination theory (e.g., informing programs that enhance adolescent autonomy, relatedness, and competence) may be effective in reducing Internet addiction.

The results of many studies have confirmed the existence of different emotional problems in women with breast cancer. So far, no study has been carried out on the effectiveness of the unified protocol. Therefore, the current research aimed at studying the effectiveness of this protocol on emotional problems of women who suffer from breast cancer.
This study was a quasi-experimental study with a control group. The treatment lasted for 12 sessions (each session 60 min). The population included all women with breast cancer in Kermanshah. Sampling was done by convenience sampling. In this study, 40 women with breast cancer were divided into two control (20) and experimental (20) groups. The control group only received medication while the experimental group received a unified protocol along with medication. The participants were examined during pre-test, post-test and follow-up assessments. The assessments were done using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Acceptance & Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II), and Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS). The data were analyzed via SPSS-24. Mean, standard deviation and repeated measures analysis were used to analyze the data.
The results of repeated measures analysis indicated that the unified protocol leads to significant improvements in the variables of the study (P<0.01). The effect size of this treatment on the variables was medium and higher. The highest size effect belonged to reappraisal, suppression, acceptance and action, depression, stress, anxiety and socio-occupational adaptation.
 The unified protocol led to a decrease in the emotional problems, an improvement in emotion regulation and acceptance towards this illness in women with breast cancer. The therapeutic implications have been discussed.

After the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, social distancing was recommended in order to prevent its spread. The current investigation was carried out to study whether commitment to social distancing could be predicted by corona-related anxiety and posttraumatic-stress disorder symptoms.
The cross sectional study was carried out on 595 individuals, who completed the questionnaires online. Convenience sampling was used for this purpose. The used questionnaires included the Impact of Event Scale (IES), Corona Disease Anxiety Scale (CDAS) and the Commitment to Social Distancing Scale (CSDS). The data analysis was done in two sections: descriptive and inferential. In the descriptive section, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA were utilized. In inferential section, exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson correlation and multiple regression were utilized. The data were analyzed using SPSS-24.
The results indicated that there was significant correlation between the impacts of all the components of the impact of event scale, except for avoidance with commitment to social distancing. Regression analysis showed that the total model was significant (adjusted r2= 0.099, f= 15.05, Sig= 0.01), and corona anxiety (β=0.319; p<0.05) and hyper-arousal subscale of the IES (β= 0.211; p<0.05) can significantly predict commitment to social distancing.
Informing the society of the importance of adherence to health instructions cannot solely lead to social distancing, therefore, policymakers need to combine public awareness with a little anxiety and alertness so that people follow health guidelines.

Emotional resilience can improve individuals' mental health by increasing their mental toughness. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of emotional resilience training in aggression and the psychological capital of assault and battery offenders. The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design and a control group. The statistical population included all assault and battery offenders in the Isfahan Central Prison in 2020. Using purposive sampling, 30 assault and battery offenders were selected and randomly divided them into experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups. The experimental group underwent 12 sessions (90-minute sessions) of emotional resilience training. The research instruments included Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire and the Psychological Capital Questionnaire. The repeated measures ANOVA and SPSS version 23.0 were used to analyze the data. The results showed that emotional resilience training had a significant effect on aggression and the psychological capital of assault and battery offenders (p<0.001). The mean±SD of the post-test scores of aggression and psychological capital in the experimental group was 92.53±14.25 and 103.33±7.97 which was significantly different from the control groups. The emotional resilience training was effective in reducing aggression and increasing the psychological capital in assault and battery offenders.

Mental disorders’ symptoms affect bio-psycho-social and spiritual conditions in cardiovascular patients. The current research has aimed to investigate the role of mental disorders’ symptoms in the prediction of death depression and death among hospitalized cardiovascular patients.
The study was carried out as a correlational work. The statistical population consisted of all cardiovascular patients admitted to Shahid Madani Hospital of Khorramabad in 2019. For this purpose, a sample of 183 patients (107 males, 46 females) were selected by convenience sampling method. The participants filled out the Derogatis SCL-90-R, Templer Death Depression Scale, and Templer Death Anxiety Scale. Data was analyzed through logistic regression method using SPSS-22 software.
The results indicate that the proportion of death depression and death anxiety in hospitalized patients with cardiovascular disease significantly increases with depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, and higher age. In addition, the results of logistic regression analysis revealed that depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, and higher age significantly predict 27.5% to 30.9% and 22.3% to 29.2% of the variance of death anxiety and death depression, respectively (P<0.001).
Evaluation of mental disorders in hospitalized cardiovascular patients is recommended to obtain a more reliable prognosis and treatment.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Marijuana Use Disorder (MUD) comorbid anxiety and depression symptoms and cessation. Fifty MUD patients were selected. The patients were randomly divided into interventional and control groups. The experimental group was treated with 12 weekly sessions of the ACT, and the control group received psycho education with the same duration. The tools used in this study included the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the marijuana abstinence urine kit. Data were analyzed with SPSS (V.26). Abstinence rates in the ACT group compared to the control at the post-test (65% vs. 25%), and at the follow-up period (55% vs.15%) showed higher effectiveness for ACT (P<0.05). Also, among those who had lapsed, participations in the ACT group had fewer days than the control group about marijuana consuming (p <0.05). In the post-test and follow-up, anxiety and depression scores and abstinence rates in the ACT were respectively lower and higher compared to the control group (P < 0.05). ACT can lead to lower consuming rates and a higher cessation rate in the MUD. It can also improve psychiatric symptoms in these patients.

The main intent of this study was to estimate the relationship of risk (adverse childhood experiences and conflict exposure) and protective factors (social support and hope) with mental health among youth in Kashmir, India. A cross-sectional co-relational research design was employed in this study.  The study included a sample of 693 (college and university) students who completed the survey questionnaires including “Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale, Kashmir Conflict Exposure Checklist, Mental Health Inventory (MHI-18), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and Adult Hope Scale” by using a multi-stage sampling method. Data was analyzed by computing Spearman’s Rank-Order Correlation to test the relationship among the study variables. The findings revealed that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and conflict exposure had a positive relationship with depression, anxiety, and loss of behavior control and a negative relationship with positive affect and overall mental health. On the contrary, social support and hope were negatively related with depression, anxiety, and loss of behavior control and positively related with positive affect and overall mental health, respectively. The present study provides evidence regarding the negative impact of ACEs and exposure to conflict on the mental health of the youth. The protective role of social support and hope in enhancing the mental health was validated in the present study. Therefore, the findings suggest enhancement of social support and development hope to promote mental health among the trauma exposed youth of Kashmir.

The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM– 5 (PCL-5) is one of the most commonly used tools in measuring PTSD symptoms. However, little is known about its validity in post-genocide Rwanda. This research therefore, aimed at determining psychometric properties and diagnostic utility of the PCL-5 scale among university students in Rwanda. A total of 143 participants completed PCL-5, the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire-part4 (HTQ-part4), and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (Anxiety [HSCL-A] and Depression [HSCL-D] subscales). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the Mean Item Inter-Correlation (MIIC) were computed to assess the tool reliability and Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) was performed to determine a valid cutoff-score. Findings indicated excellent internal consistency for PCL-5 total score and each of the four subscales. PCL-5 scores correlated strongly with scores on HTQ-part4, HSCL-D and HSCL-A, supporting convergent validity. The diagnostic accuracy of the scale was excellent (AUC=0.934, p<.001). The optimal cutoff score of ≥23 optimized sensitivity (0.887) while maintaining adequate specificity (0.889). It can be concluded that PCL-5 has high validity, internal consistency, and psychometric properties when applied to the sample of Rwandan students.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of behavioral parent training of mothers with severe deaf children, on enhancing maternal parenting style.
The research design was an experimental study with a pre-test, post-test and a control group. The research population included all mothers with severe hearing loss children. So, 24 mothers whose children had the most severe hearing loss were selected as the main sample in the academic year of 2015 in Azna city, Iran. Then, they were placed into experimental and control groups after being matched based on age, educational level, and socioeconomic status. The research tool included the Child Behavior Checklist-Persian Version (CBCL) and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). The parental behavior training was performed in nine 90-minute sessions in the experimental group. The data were analyzed by multivariable analyze of covariance.
Findings revealed the effect of behavioral parental training on reducing authoritarian and permissive parenting styles of mothers with deaf children in the experimental group. Moreover, behavioral parent training enhanced maternal authority parenting style score in the experimental group [P<0.05].
Behavioral parent training is important in decreasing negative parenting styles and in enhancing positive interaction between parents and deaf children.

Studying the predictors of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during the Covid-19 pandemic is a new research field.  The current study was conducted in order to evaluate the predictors of PTSD based on mental health, Covid-19 anxiety and sleep quality in the students of the Lorestan province, Iran. In order to carry out this study, 200 students (143 females and 57 males) were selected by convince sampling and participated in this study. The participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Covid-19 Anxiety Scale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and demographic information questionnaire. The data was analyzed by independent t-student and stepwise regression using SPSS 24. Findings revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between Covid-19 anxiety, general sleep quality and mental health with PTSD symptoms (p<0.05). Also, stepwise regression analysis showed that sleep quality and mental health were predictors of PTSD and mental health is the best predictor of PTSD and could determine 0.27 of PTSD variance. Finally, the 46.5 % prevalence of PTSD symptoms in students was an important finding of this study. Necessity to pay attention to dimensions of mental health as an influential factor in the spread of other psychological disorders is recommended. Due to the high prevalence of PTSD symptoms, the inclusion of health-oriented programs becomes more important.