JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES
Year:2013 | Volume:11 | Issue:1 (25)|Papers Count:11

Aim and Background: Evaluation of neurocognitive mechanism involved in smoking can be helpful in the treatment of this dependence. The aim of this study was to compare the inhibitory control and risky decision making in smokers and nonsmokers.Methods and Materials: 40 smokers and 40 nonsmokers were selected from Tehran, Iran, with convenience sampling in 2010-2011. In this retrospective study, Go/NoGo and Balloon Analogue Risk-Taking (BART) Task were used for the evaluation of inhibitory control and risky decision making, respectively. Student’s t-test was used for analysis.Findings: Findings showed that smokers and nonsmokers were similar in Go stage of Go/NoGo task (P<0.05). In NoGo stage, smokers significantly had lower grade from nonsmokers (P<0.01). Smokers had higher risky decision in BART task (P<0.01).Conclusions: Deficit in risk taking and inhibitory control could be considered as predisposing and influencing factors for smoking. These factors should be considered in the prevention and treatment of smokers.

Aim and Background: The present study aimed to investigate the symptom severity and quality of life in patients suffering from bipolar disorder.Methods and Materials: This longitudinal and prospective study was done on 20 patients with bipolar type I disorder who were hospitalized in Noor Hospital of Isfahan, Iran. Patients were evaluated before hospitalization, at the time of discharge, 3 and 6 months after discharge. Patient’s mood symptoms severity and quality of life were evaluated by Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) and World Health Organization’s Quality of Life Questionnaire.Findings: Repeated measure analysis of variance showed that the mean of mood symptoms severity at the time of hospitalization was significantly higher than its mean at the time of discharge, as well as 3 and 6 months after it. However, there was no significant difference between the scores of quality of life at discharge, and 3 and 6 months after discharge.Conclusions: It can be acknowledged that patient’s hospitalization was effective in decreasing the symptom severity and increasing quality of life at the time of discharge and it remained the same through the next stages.

Aim and Background: Meta-cognition is one of the high cognitive processes of brain which has positive relationship with other cognitive capacities and can be considered as a predisposing factor in most of psychopathologies. The aim of present study was to examine the relationship between meta-cognition components with anxiety and depression in mothers of children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with mothers of normal children.Methods and Materials: In a cross-sectional study, among mothers of 7 to 12 year-old children who lived in Isfahan (Iran), 50 mothers with ADHD children and 50 mothers with normal children were chosen through purposive sampling in 2011. They were assessed using meta-cognitive beliefs questionnaire, Spielberger’s Anxiety Questionnaire, and Beck Depression Inventory-II.Findings: Data analysis showed that there was a significant difference in anxiety and depression between the two groups of mothers with ADHD children and mothers of normal children when the age was controlled and the first group had more depression symptoms. The mean of meta-cognition scores in these two groups was not significantly different. Anxiety was correlated with depression and meta-cognition in both groups (P=0.01).Conclusions: Psychological health of mothers of children with ADHD was less than mothers of normal children, and utilization of a systemic approach can be useful in solving problems of such families.

Aim and Background: The aim of this study was to investigate explicit and implicit memory biases in students of Alzahra University and Tehran University, Iran with depression, anxiety, mixed disorder and normal students.Methods and Materials: This research design was based on causal comparative design.100 students of Alzahra University and Tehran University were chosen by cluster random sampling method. They were given Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) test, Beck Depression Inventory, and Beck Anxiety Inventory. Subjects were asked to decode the words and recall them. Then they answered the free recall tasks which assessed memory biases. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and student’s t-test.Findings: Based on recalling the words (positive, negative and threatening emotions) there was a significant difference between implicit memory under difficult and easy situations and explicit memory in groups (P<0.001).Conclusions: The bias in depressed, anxious, and mixed depression anxiety groups were more in their implicit memory than explicit memory. They recalled the emotionally negative and threating words under difficult situations less. Results showed that the mixed depression anxiety group recalled words similar to depressed group than anxious group.

Aim and Background: Improving the quality of life is the main goal of managements for all diseases.The present study aimed to determine the relationship between quality of life and symptom severity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).Methods and Materials: Based on physician diagnosis using Rome III criteria, 225 patients with irritable bowel syndrome who were visited in a psychosomatic clinic in Isfahan, Iran were recruited. All the selected cases completed the irritable bowel syndrome-quality of life (IBS-QOL) and irritable bowel syndrome severity index (IBS-SI) questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficient.Findings: 65 (28.9%) patients were males and 160 (71.1%) were females with mean age of 38.6±12.3 years and mean disease duration of 5.1±4.3 years. Mean score of IBS-QOL and IBS-SI was 43.4±20.7 and 238.9±95.4, respectively. IBS-QOL score and IBS-SI score had a statistically significant positive correlation.Conclusions: The quality of life was inversely related to severity of symptoms in patients with IBS.

Aim and Background: Alexithymia is a psychological construct that is prevalent in a wide range of psychiatric and medical disorders. Because of its importance in mental and physical health, many surveys today assess the different aspects of alexithymia in clinical and nonclinical populations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of alexithymia and compare male and female students of Shahid Chamran University in alexithymia and its subscales.Methods and Materials: The study sample consisted of 841 undergraduate students of Shahid Chamran University. This sample was selected by multistage random sampling method from the 8000 undergraduates in the year 2008. The data collection tool was the 20-item version of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). To analyze data descriptive statistics, chi-square test, Student’s independent t-test, and multivariate analysis of variance were used.Findings: The results showed that the rate of alexithymia was 19.5% in the whole sample, 18.8% in females, and 20.2% in males. There was no significant difference in prevalence of alexithymia between male and female. Comparison of the two genders in the total score and three subscales showed that there were significant differences in total score and the external oriented thinking subscale in which the averages were higher in male students (P<0.01).Conclusions: There was no difference in prevalence and intensity of difficulty in identifying and describing feelings between males and females. However, the high prevalence of alexithymia in Iranian undergraduate students is an indicator of the necessity for emotional education in schools and universities.

Aim and Background: The present study aimed to investigate the factorial structure and reliability of Persian version of the Multiple Intelligences Inventory.Methods and Materials: First, this inventory was translated to Farsi. Then, it was retranslated to English and was compared with the original version to find and correct the gaps between the translated version and the original version. Finally, after the pilot study and resolving the mistakes, the final inventory was carried out for a group of 413 students studying in Humanities Sciences in Tabriz Payame Noor University (283 females and 130 males). In this study, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the items of scales, using a principal component analysis, with Varimax rotation.Findings: Results of factor analysis showed different dimension for each scales; because these factors were assigned a name according to the content of the items. Item-total correlations varied between 0.55 and 0.91, indicating consistency with the entire subscales. The results of item discrimination also showed that all the items had relatively good level of discrimination power. The reliability of the inventory was obtained by internal consistency (alpha) and test-retest methods. Alpha coefficient for subscales was from 0.74 to 0.96; and correlation coefficient after four weeks of retest was from 0.68 to 0.89. Alpha and testretest coefficients showed that reliability of subscales was acceptable.Conclusions: It can be concluded that Multiple Intelligences Inventory has appropriate psychometric properties to determine individual intelligence profiles.

Recently, tremendous studies have been made on psychopathology and treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD). According to these studies, several etiological models have been developed for SAD.Some studied concepts include temperamental and genetic factors, environmental factors and learning experiences, social skill deficits, cognitive factors, cultural issues, and evolutionary factors. Etiological models based on different approaches employed these concepts for development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. The present article reviewed the etiological models of social anxiety disorder that have been presented until now. Evaluation of these models and clinical implications of them were discussed.