Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology
Year:2000 | Volume:6 | Issue:1 (21)|Papers Count:12

Prescribing the overdose of medication or polypharmacy for a patient is not principally recommended. Although, studies indicate that the usage of polypharmacy, specially from different groups of medicines, and in particular for refractory patients to treatment, if it is prescribed carefully, not only is beneficial but is necessary too. From the total patients who refer to medical doctors for any reason, 28 to 35 percent suffer from one kind of mental disorder, and those patients whose illnesses are diagnosed as more severe and complex would be referred to psychiatrists by their physicians. Perhaps for that reason, psychiatrists are forced more than any other medical doctors to prescribe polypharmacy. The medication often prescribed as polypharmacy in psychiatry are, 1) antidepressants and benzodiazepins (25%), 2) antipsychotics and antidepressants (17%), and 3) lithum and antidepressants(8%). Among psychiatric patients, the sufferer from mania needs to take polypharmacy more than any other patients to be able to control the symptoms of their illness. Today, considering the peculiarity of psycho-pharmacological medications on one hand, and more complexity of medical treatment in psychiatry on the other also increasing number of the refractory patients to the treatment, it have necessitate gaining adequate and up to date by psychiatrists knowledge for prescribing polypharmacy. This article also argues about the limitations, difficulties, reasoning and the method of applying psychopharmacological drugs in mental disturbances, specially in acute mania.

Objective: Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders which may cause disability and premature mortality. Also coerces extra expenditure on individual and society. This study compares the direct and indirect expenditures of depressed patients involved in the number of times referred to the physician, number of paraclinic checking, and the absent days from work or school throughout the year with those of the general population. Method: One hundred depressed patients (67% female and 33% male) and 100 non-depressed (66% female and 34% male) who had equal demographic status such as age, educational level and occupation, were assessed by a questionnaire. The statistical data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and t - test. Findings: The findings indicate that the two groups were significantly different on the number of their referring to physicians (excluding psychiatric visits) and laboratory checkings also on the days not attending to their work or classes.

Objective: This study has been carried out in Iran and Tehran Universities of Medical Sciences to assess the relationship among stressors, the rate of reliance on God and stress symptoms. Method: The 408 study sample (M= 234, F=174), were randomly selected from the students, with the age mean score 22.4 years old (SD=3.45), studying in different educational levels of basic sciences, physiopathology, clinical and internships. The data were collected through "Reliance on God Questionnaire", "Stressors Questionnaire", and "Stress Symptoms Questionnaire", and were statistically analyzed by variance, and Sheffe's methods. Findings: The findings showed that 44.1% of the subjects had low level of stress, 31.1% had average level and 24.8% had high level of stress. The stressors like failing in exams, death of the beloved ones, and severe fights with father, gained the highest percentile rate among the students respectively. From the symptoms, distress, anxiety and shyness are reported more than any other symptoms by the subjects. Results: The comparison between the scores obtained from the two scales indicated that the higher the scores of "Reliance on God Questionnaire" results a decrease of the scores in "Stress Symptom Questionnaire".

Objective: This study examined forty nine instances of phobic adolescents phenomena classified in the following seven categories: School phobia, agoraphobia, zoophobia, claustrophobia, social phobia, physician fear, exam anxiety.Method: The subjects were 120 female and 120 male high-school and pre-university students selected through random cluster sampling. The data were analyzed through descriptive method and t-test. Findings: The findings indicate that social phobia are on the top of the rank of other phobias hierarchically followed by zoophobia, physician phobia, school phobia, agoraphobia and phenomena ranked respectively. Notably, the scores obtained by female students were higher than males both in the number of phobic instances and in the intensity of the condition.

Objective: The studies indicate that the "eye-blink" component of "acoustic startle reflex," can be modulated through emotionally slide stimuli. Pleasant stimulants reduce eye-blink amplitude, whereas unpleasant stimulants enhance them. Method: The present study examines the modulation of the acoustic startle reflexes through a short film clips (2-min), classified as pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, on the basis of subjective ratings on 22 males and females aged between 18-45 years old. Findings: Results indicate a significant reduction of startle during the pleasant clips and an increase during unpleasant clips. However, one of the two unpleasant clips (a medical demonstration film depicting details of toe surgery) inhibited the startle reflex rather than augmented it. This is discussed in terms of the proposition that only stimuli which arouse fear, can be guaranteed to augment startle; and repulsive stimuli may produce perceptual and emotional "blunting" that reduces startle amplitude.

Objective: Neuropsychological findings suggest that the ability to write short words do not give any hints of those words to be pronounced correctly. This is one of the brains abilities that could be defected by brains lesion on the basis of these findings, a scale was invented in Farsi language consisting of 50 words to assess words reading as the scale of verbal intelligence called "WORD READING SCALE" abbreviated as "MHK". Method: This self-made inventory has been standardized on 154 samples from the city of Shiraz (F=76 & M=78). Raven Progressive Matrices were used as external criterion to signify the correlation between the scores of "Word Reading Scale" and general intelligence quotient. Also the correlation coefficient between these scales and the level of education of the subjects were calculated. Conclusion: The data indicate that the Word Reading Scale is significantly valid and it may assess general level of intelligence.

Introduction: In any car accident four factors may be involved: human factor, road, vehicle and environment. About 90 to 95 percent of car accidents in Iran are caused by human factor which could be pointed out as driving errors; traffic misconception; tiredness; drowsiness; drug and alcohol consumption; driving in black hours (late night, early morning, and after lunch); youngsters driving, specially at late night; weekends and while they are accompanied by their pals. Method: This is a library method study which also looks to the results obtained from the researches administered in Iran and the world organizations on car accidents.Findings: Comparing the rate of car crashes between Iran and other countries reveals a 55% growth of car accidents in Iran during 1993-1995. Also the mean score of the car accident victims in Iran is many times higher than other countries. Most of the victims are among the pedestrians in active age-group-20 to 50 years olds.Results: To prevent car accidents a comprehensive plan should be devised. Considering the substantial role of human factors in car accidents, an educational program has been suggested for students, drivers and pedestrians.

Objective: Early school dropout and its social and behavioral consequences is one of the important problems among the students in particular at middle school level. In this study the psycho-social factors associated with school performance of middle school shahed students are examined in Hamedan province. Method: 889 shahed students and 151 non-shahed students from the same school were evaluated by survey method and through the following scales: Questionnaire developed by the researcher as educational attitude scale, Cooper-Smith Self-Esteem Scale, and Children Depression Scale (CDS). Findings: The data analysis of this research was based on multivariate regression, indicates that from the variables associated with the research hypothesis, some factors such as family, self esteem, depression, level of satisfaction with mother, and the length of the fathers absence, can explain the variation of students average scores on school performance.