Iranian Journal of Practice in Clinical Psychology
Volume:11 Issue: 1, Winter 2023

In this study, the authors seek to investigate the relationship between cognitive impairment and fear of COVID-19. Among the residents of Tehran Province, Iran, 415 people were selected through the available sampling method. 

The research data was obtained through online questionnaires that were distributed to participants via platforms, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Broadbent’s cognitive failure questionnaire and the scale of fear of COVID-19 were used in this study. The obtained data were analyzed by the independent t test and stepwise regression.

According to the findings, the relationship between following COVID-19 news and the fear of COVID-19 is negative. Also, a positive and significant relationship exists between memory error and fear of COVID-19. Also, the standard coefficients show that despite the direction of the effect, both variables have the same power to change the dependent variable.

The findings showed that the subscale of memory (forgetfulness) predicts the fear of COVID-19, and the existence of memory problems, false triggering, and distractibility, which are components of cognitive failure, decrease individuals’ mental health.

This study aims to determine the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the adult sources of self-esteem inventory as a cross-cultural scale for assessing self-esteem.

A sample of 500 students (350 females, 150 males) were selected from Kharazmi University in Iran and they completed the Persian version of the adult sources of Elovson and Fleming’s self-esteem inventory and Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale. 

The Cronbach α of 0.90 indicated the satisfactory reliability of the inventory. Also, the results of the explanatory factor analysis proposed 3 factors, namely the outer self, personal self, and relational self. Additionally, the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed this structure.

The findings showed that the Persian version of the adult sources of self-esteem inventory is a suitable tool to assess sources of self-esteem and can be used in research and intervention fields in Iranian samples.

This study aimed to understand the effectiveness of the Self-affirmation intervention for subclinical depression in Indian adults. 

We used the experimental research design. Using purposive sampling, 80 participants with subclinical depression were chosen. The participants were randomly allocated equally to experimental (intervention) and control (non-intervention) groups. Their depression was measured at 3 intervals: pre- and post-interventions and follow-up. We hypothesized that Self-affirmation intervention will show curative and preventive capacity for subclinical depression. The data were analyzed using the 3-way analysis of variance method.

The results revealed the significant curative power of the Self-affirmation intervention for subclinical depression of the participants in the experimental group when compared to the control group. The main effects of conditions (intervention: control and experimental) and treatment intervals (pre-, post-, and follow-up) as well as their interaction effect were significant. Mean subclinical depression scores during pre- and post-interventions and follow-up intervals confirmed the curative and prophylactic power of the intervention. 

The study findings indicated that the affirmation-based intervention carries both curative and preventive powers for subclinical depression, as reflected in the experimental group’s lower performance after the intervention and follow-up. The reverberating positive effects induced after Self-affirmation manipulation have remained active even after the intervention ended because of the underlying mechanisms of meaning, strengths, positive attributions, and beneficial social relationships that inhibit the relapse of subclinical depressive tendencies.

Polysubstance use as a severity index in individuals with substance abuse disorder is associated with various psychological, social, cultural, and genetic factors. This research aims to examine the predictive role of personality traits, personality functions, traumatic life events, and emotion-regulation difficulties in polysubstance use and the severity of dependence.

A total of 300 subjects (75.2% male) with the mean age of 40.07 years and standard deviation of 12.26 were chosen via the available sampling method. The subjects included individuals abusing one substance (30.6%), a group abusing multiple substances (37.5%), and a nonclinical group (31.7%). The participants completed the questionnaires of short-form personality inventory based on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, levels of personality functioning scale, dysfunctional emotion regulation scale, and life events checklist.

The results of ranked regression and structural equation modeling indicated that the variables of personality traits (2.69), emotional regulation strategies (2.04), personality functioning (1.17), and stressful factors (1.65) had a significant role in predicting drug abuse.

Personality affects all life dimensions. Emotion regulation strategies, by affecting maladaptive traits, especially negative affectivity and antagonism, as well as personality functions can predispose the person to polysubstance use.

The present study defines the experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and aims to explain its relationship with satisfaction with married life and sexual performance in Iranian married women.

The statistical population included all married women in Tehran Province, Iran, in 2021 in the age range of 18 to 50 years. According to the study population, 200 people were selected as the sample using the available sampling method and answered the female sexual function index, developed by Rosen et al. (2000), the marital satisfaction questionnaire by Enrich (1989), and the unwanted childhood sexual experiences questionnaire by Stevenson (1998). In the statistical method, the research hypotheses were tested according to the normally distributed research variables, using the Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression.

The results of the Pearson correlation showed a negative and significant relationship between the experience of CSA and satisfaction with married life, along with the two components of sexual pain and sexual desire in the variable of sexual performance (P<0.01). In addition, the multivariate regression results showed that CSA experiences could predict marital life satisfaction. However, only the component of maximum contact in the CSA variable predicted the components of sexual pain and sexual desire in the sexual performance variable (P<0.01).

The experience of CSA in Iranian married women can affect their marital relationship and sexual performance. Accordingly, efforts should be made to identify these people and consider appropriate psychological measures for their recovery because, in Iranian culture, most people hide this incident out of social shame and fear of being dishonored.

Many studies have suggested a relationship between coherence and cognitive processes. This study aims to investigate this hypothesis by assessing the relationship between cognitive variables and coherence in the discourse of 2 groups of Persian-speaking young adults and the elderly.

To evaluate our participants’ cognitive capabilities, we employed the cognitive tests of the mini-mental status test, the Stroop-color task, the digit symbol copy task, the clock-drawing task, and the backward digit span. On the other hand, the specific tasks to evaluate the discourse properties of the participants were the single task of talking and the dual task of talking while walking.

The results demonstrated that the dual task did not impact local coherence while global coherence was significantly disrupted in both tasks. However, the global coherence scale was more negatively affected in the dual task compared to the single task. While the relationship between global coherence and cognitive variables was significant in both tasks, the relationship between global coherence and working memory measures was only significant in the dual task. Furthermore, no relationship was observed between the scale of local coherence and either cognitive or working memory measures. 

Our findings corroborate previous findings that local and global coherence is manipulated by different cognitive processes and the maintenance of global coherence requires more demanding cognitive processes and is disrupted before local coherence occurs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created many problems. This paper aims to predict moral reasoning through spiritual health and personality via the mediating role of empathy in physicians and nurses.

The current research is a cross-sectional analysis conducted on 320 physicians and nurses working in hospitals’ COVID-19 wards. We used the available sampling method, and the research tools included the brief form of personality inventory for The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (Krueger et al. 2012), the spiritual well-being scale (Dehshiri 2009), the defining issue test-2 (Rest et al. 1986), and the interpersonal reactivity index (Davis 1983). 

The results of the current investigation indicated that spiritual well-being has a positive and significant effect on empathy (P<0.0001, β=0.236). Empathy has a positive and significant correlation with moral reasoning (P=0.032, β=0.117). And finally, the moral reasoning variable in the current model was calculated at 0.019.

The current study shows that empathy can predict moral reasoning. Meanwhile, understanding the feelings of others can be more useful in judgment and decision-making. In addition, spiritual health can play an important role in empathy.

Depression and anxiety are common in children and a major cause of many illnesses and disabilities in this age group; Moreover, parents have the greatest impact on shaping the mental health and well-being of their children and there is a vast literature describing the importance of parenting factors in the development of depression and anxiety in children. 

We used the experimental research design in this study. The sample consisted of 34 children with depression and anxiety who were randomly allocated into ACT on parenting (intervention) and control groups via the randomization method. The intervention group received eight 2-h sessions weekly. The revised child anxiety and depression scale, parent short versions and the self-compassion scale were administered in both groups. The analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) and the repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to determine the difference between the intervention and control groups on depression, anxiety, and self-compassion. 

ANCOVA and repeated measures ANOVA results showed clinically significant changes in depression and anxiety in children and self-compassion in parents in the intervention group (P<0.001). The Mean±SD of depression in the intervention group was 16.50±0.89 at baseline, which significantly decreased to 2.94±3.27 at post-measure and 2.25±3.35 at follow-up (P<0.001). The Mean±SD of anxiety was 18.19±1.87, which significantly decreased to 7.63±4.34 at post-measure and 7.06±4.52 at follow-up (P<0.001). Additionally, the mean and SD score of self-compassion was 56.43±3.14 in pre-intervention, which significantly improved to 97.18±3.72 in post-intervention and 98.25±4.76 at follow-up (P<0.001).

The results show that ACT-based parenting is an effective treatment for depression and anxiety in children. This method also improves self-compassion in parents.