DANESHVAR RAFTAR
Year:2004 | Volume:11 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

This paper presents the findings of two studies examining the prevalence rates of chronic persistent and chronic recurrent pain and the impact of these two types of chronic pain on several aspects of patients* lives. 1175 subjects (98% male and 2% female) participated in the first study. Thirty- nine percent (454 subjects) of the total sample reported some sort of pain that had lasted a whole day or more over the past 6 months, yielding a prevalence rate of 39% for their pain experience over the past 6 months. Of these 454 subjects, 163 subjects (or 14% of the total sample) reported chronic persistent pain and 176 subjects (or 15% of the original sample) reported chronic recurrent pain. Twohundred and twenty nine male subjects who meet the criteria for chronic persistent and chronic recurrent pain participated in the second study. These subjects rated their social and recreational activities as well as their job and marital satisfaction, currently and before pain began. The patients also reported the amount of time spent sleeping in 24 hour day at the time of the study and before pain began. Using paired samples t- test procedures, significant differences emerged for all measures. Specifically, at the time of the study patients reported less social and recreational activities (t=-8.91, p<.0001),compared to before pain began. In addition, at the time of the study patients reported lower levels of job satisfaction (t=-8.76, p<.0001)and lower levels of marital satisfaction (t=-6.71, p<.0001).Patients also reported less time spent sleeping at the time of the study, compared to before pain began (t=-7.01, p<.0001).The above findings cofirmed the results of previous studies, mostly conducted in Western societies. That is, chronic pain has negative impacts on many aspects of patient*s life, including social and recreational activities as well as job and marital satisfaction. Furthermore, from the findings of the present study it can be concluded that the experience of chronic is associated with sleep problems. The possible clinical significance of these findings will be discussed.

Determination and classification of certain behaviors for women are heavily influenced by pre-established educational and social values of educated men. Such erroneous beliefs like fear, jealousy, etc. result in sexual prototyping and establish cliche imaginations. Thus cognitive structures form different schemata. The improvement and modification of schemata are possible with knowledge increment. The aim of this research is to study the impact of men*s level of academic qualification on altering the structure of sex discrimination schemata. To achieve this aim 200 men holding degrees higher or lower than high school diploma were chosen and identified on the basis of social class random sampling method, and their responses to the ten questions with indispensable validity and reliability were collected. The findings of this study show that knowledge increment in men is influencing in improvement and modification of schemata, and men with higher academic qualifications have a better attitude toward women behavioral attributes.

Recent research findings about University students show that lack of appropriate skills of coping with stress causes burn out and emotional distress and as a result will affect academic achievement (Ripak, 2000). The aim of present research is to study the relationship between coping with stress skills and academic achievement of undergraduate students in relation to some demographic factors such as gender, marital status and place of residency (dormitory. or otherwise). The subjects of the study consisted of 488 (272 females and 216 males) undergraduate students, with mean age of 22 years, from faculties of Education, Humanities, law, science, and engineering, at Shiraz University. The instrument was "coping with stress skills"? Uerabec, 1996), which was adapted and validated for use in Iranian culture. The results of factor analysis showed that the scale consisted of four factors: evaluation of situation, reaction to stress, resourcefulness and flexibility. Alpha Corebach coefficients for these factors were between 38 to 78 and for the total score was 77. In this study the grade point average of the students was used as an indicator of academic achievement The data were analyzed via stepwise regression and one-way analysis of variance. The results showed that situational evaluation skill has a positive effect on academic achievement In addition the academic achievement of the students who lived in dormitory were lower than the other studentS. Female students in comparison with male students and single students in comparison with married students have higher academic achievement The results were discussed in relation to previous studies and certain counseling suggestions were presented.

This research aimed to study work-family role conflict and to determine the social factors having influence on the conflict The effort is taken to offer a model for identification of the work-family conflict The research is based on scarcity and accumulation approaches, and theories such as Merton*s role set, Good*s role strain, Seiber*s accumulation role, and Mark*s role balance, as well as benefiting from certain models for work-family role conflict which are of the major issues in optimization and organizational behavior studies. This model puts forward three major thoughts which are: interactive nature of conflicts, the influence of work factors on work-family role conflict and the influence of family factors on family-work role conflict, and the role of sex in moderating the rate, and direction of the influential factors in experienced conflicts. The results of this research support the suggested model and identify the most important variables having influence on work-family conflict and on every dimension of it for both men and women.

The present article aimed at the study of stressful events and the relative coping strategies, comparatively in shahed and non- shahed university students. Thus, 530 samples were studied in different fields of study proportionate to the mass of subgroups. 354 samples were non- shahed, whereas 166 were shahed students (10 students didn*t specify their situation). The instruments used for this research were the stress- assessment questionnaire (including 90 questions) and the coping strategies questionnaire (consisting of 72 questions). The results indicated that in most cases the stress was related to excessive preoccupation, the students* concerns about selecting a job appropriate to their field of study, the change in sleeping habits... . However, the least stressful situation was due to desired pregnancy, remarriage, the child*s birth and temporary apprehension. The coping strategies mostly used were trust in God and seeking his help, profound and careful thinking about the measures that could have been taken to solve the problem, striving hard to remove the barriers. On the other hand, coping strategies such as using drugs, or tranquillizers, smoking and resorting to fortunetellers (or soothsayers) and the writers of amulets and prayers were rarely used. The comparison of shahed and non- shahed students showed their stressful factors greatly differed from each other, but no significant difference was observed between these two groups considering the coping strategies, except for the rejection strategy which was used more by the shahed students than non- shahed ones.

Present research aimed to study the mental health state of the employees of Tabriz Oil refinery company. For this purpose, the entire personnel (985) with the average age of 42.5 and average working experience of 19 years werE? examined. The research instrument was the revised version of the index finding 90- item check- list (SCL- 90- R). Results showed that depression and phobia held the highest and the lowest average range. Day and shift working employees showed not any significant difference but in obsession disorder. A significant difference in paranoia was also observed among employees when divided according to their education level. There was no significant difference between single and married employees, but the results showed a significant difference in anxiety, depression, obsession, paranoia, and physical complaints among the refinery eight organization employees. Finally employees showed to have a better mental health with the age and work experience increase.