Iranian Journal of Practice in Clinical Psychology
Volume:2 Issue: 3, Summer 2014

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of premenstrual symptoms on health related quality of life (HRQOL) in a sample of Iranian women. In this cross-sectional study, a sample of women aged 15–45 years, who lived in Tehran were randomly recruited according to demographic questionnaire. For diagnosing the premenstrual dysphoric disorder and premenstrual syndrome, Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool (PSST) was used in this study. The Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Premenstrual Symptoms Impact Survey (PMSIS) were administered to evaluate health-related quality of life. Among 430 women, 44% had PMS, 16% met the diagnostic criteria for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and 40% were in General Population (GP) group. The SF-36 scores showed that in all dimensions except for physical functioning there were statistically significant mean differences among the three groups. Also, women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder and PMS group had significantly different social function, validity, and mental health. Comparing the Premenstrual Symptoms Impact Survey scores between the three groups mean, scores of feeling frustration, fatigue and mood swings for the premenstrual dysphoric disorder were significantly higher than the two other groups. Premenstrual symptoms have significant impact on health-related quality of life assessed by SF-36 and PMSIS, specially on mental and emotional domains.

The present study was carried out to study the relationship between sensation seeking and social skills in two groups of school age patients; Down-Syndrome (DS) and Autism Disorder (DS). This is a descriptive-analytic and correlation study in which all participants were of primary school age (10 to 13 years) with Down-Syndrome and Autism Disorder of autism spectrum disorder and down-syndrome rehabilitation centers and schools, in Tehran. Two groups, Down-Syndrome (N=35) and Autism Disorder (N=35), were randomly selected from a larger community, as sample group for the present study. Marvin Zuckerman (1994), 4-dimensions Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS), and Scott-Bellini Autism Social Skills Profiles (ASSP) 3 subscales were used as outcome measures. Gathered data were analyzed by using Pearson’s correlation coefficients, multivariable regression and Z tests. The results showed that there are significant (α=0./05) relationships between susceptibility to boredom, seeking experience and sum scores of sensation seeking with social skills in Down-Syndrome group as well as there is significant relationship between susceptibility to boredom and sum scores of sensation seeking with social skills in Autism group. Based on the results, it can be concluded that sensation seeking capability can improve social skills in children who are seriously impaired in social relationship and communication. In addition, this study suggests sensation seeking training program for promotions of social skills in children with social problems and who do not show normal social behavior specially children with autistic spectrum disorders.

Early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) or fundamental beliefs that underpin stable and trait-like psychological disorders are chronic and relapsing. In, active schemas in dysthymic patients with major depression have been compared with healthy individuals.The purpose of this study was to compare early maladaptive schemas (Young, 2003, 1990) in dysthymic patients with major depression and healthy subjects. For this study, 46 patients with major depression and 20 non-hospitalized patients with dysthymic during the year who referred to medical centers and clinics in Kermanshah (a city in West of Iran) were selected through structured interviews and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), and 66 patients with mild problems who referred to the clinic were considered as control group. 15 early maladaptive schemas through Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form (YSQ-SF) were measured. Analysis of variance showed that maladaptive schemas was different in the three groups. Maladaptive schemas of emotional deprivation, social isolation, defectiveness/ shame, and failure in patients with dysthymic, and maladaptive schemas of Self-sacrifice, and unrelenting standards/ hypercriticalness, entitlement/grandiosity, were active in patients with major depression. Healthy people were not active in any schema incompatibility. Maladaptive schemas in patients with dysthymic were more than the other two groups. In depression group, all early maladaptive schemas except abandonment and dependence / incompetence schemas, indicated higher scores. The evidence shows that schemas of emotional deprivation, social isolation, failure, and defectiveness/shame are specific keys for dysthymic disorder and emotional inhibition, and unrelenting standards are the keys for major depressive disorder.

Working memory is the ability of maintaining and manipulating the required information for operating generalization in future. The aim of the present research is to investigate the effectiveness of neurofeedback therapy on the working memory in children with ADHD. 24 children with ADHD who had the required standards to participate in the study were selected by accessible sampling and put randomly in an experimental group or a control group. The experimental group attended 20 sessions of neurofeedback instruction for 2 months. The individuals from both groups (experimental or control) were assessed and compared by giving SWM test in two stages of pre-test and post-test. The obtained results were analyzed by the statistic method of covariance analysis. Neurofeedback instruction is able to recover the working memory of children with ADHD. Neurofeedback instruction can be used as an intervening method for working memory recovery in children with ADHD.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of expressive arts therapy on decreasing anxiety of orphaned girls living in family-like centers of Mashhad, Iran. One week prior to final examinations, participants were randomly assigned to either an expressive art-making group or a control group. The State-trait anxiety inventory was administered before and after participation. Expressive art making activities included painting or coloring predesigned Mandalas, free-form painting, collage making, still life drawing, and modeling with clay. The mean state anxiety score between pre-activity and post-activity decreased significantly in the expressive art-making group, whereas no difference was found in the control group. Similarly, the mean trait anxiety score between pre- and post-activity in the artmaking group was significantly lower, and no difference was observed in the controls. These findings suggest that a brief period of expressive art making can significantly reduce a person’s state of anxiety, which may have implications for art and art therapy programs that offer methods for helping orphaned children coping with stress.

This article presents an application of cluster analysis for social sciences researches especially those studies that have an interview as part of their data collection. This application is more suitable for sequential mixed method researchers who use quantitative data to frame subsequent qualitative subsamples for conducting interviews. In more detail, the algorithm (i.e., single linkage) employed for cluster analysis in this article is suitable for identifying the potential candidates for conducting interviews when the researcher is interested in outliers. Outliers provide interesting contrasts and distinction with other observations in a data set and are an interest for qualitative data analysis strategies. The authors believe that cluster analysis is a better option than the traditional procedures for finding outliers (e.g., using explore or boxplot in SPSS) because cluster analysis finds outliers while considering different variables whereas the traditional methods has limitations and find outliers in respect to one variable. To present this application, first, cluster analysis and the single linkage which can be used for finding outlier data is presented. Then, a data set related to the psychology of learning mathematics was used to illustrate how outliers can be identified with cluster analysis via IBM SPSS 22. Finally, the results obtained from cluster analysis was interpreted. This is happened in order to explore whether the chosen algorithm for cluster analysis is accurate for finding suitable candidates for interviews.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of five major personality factors and sexual self-schema in body image dissatisfaction. In this study, a correlational design was used and 270 individuals (Male: 135, Female: 135) with age of 17 to 40, citizens of Tehran, who were selected by the available random sampling were included. They completed Neo-PI questionnaire, Fisher body image scale (Fisher, 1970), and Sexual Self-schema Scale (Cyranowski & Andersen, 1998). The results show a meaningful and positive relationship between neuroticism and body image dissatisfaction; there is also a meaningful and negative relationship between conscientiousness, openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness and body image dissatisfaction. General sexual Self-schema, the personality factors of neuroticism and agreeableness can predict 26.9 percent of body image dissatisfaction variance. Low scores in positive personality characteristics such as conscientiousness, openness to experience, extroversion and agreeableness and high scores in the neuroticism with poor sexual Self-schema make the individuals vulnerable to negative messages about their body sizes and shapes that finally results in their body image dissatisfaction.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of the media, perfectionism, and difficulties in emotion regulation in prediction of muscle dysmorphia symptoms. In this research, 240 male body-builders were selected from five gyms in Gorgan (north of Iran). They were required to answer Muscle Dysmorphia Disorder Inventory (MDDI), Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), The Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). The collected data were analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple regression. All variables were correlated with muscle dysmorphia symptom (P<0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that all three variables, the media, perfectionism, and difficulties in emotional regulation can significantly predict muscle dysmorphia symptom (P<0.001). Importance and multi-aspect nature of social, cognitive, and emotional variables in formulation of muscle dysmorphia disorder were emphasized in this research.