DANESHVAR RAFTAR
Year:2005 | Volume:12 | Issue:13 (SPECIAL EDITION ON PSYCHOLOGY)|Papers Count:9

Although evidence from chronic non-cancer pain population supports the role of pain-related beliefs in patients’ adjustment to chronic pain, little has been known about the impact of pain-related beliefs in the adjustment to cancer pain. This study examined the factor structure, reliability and validity of the Pain Beliefs and Perception Inventory among a sample of 232 cancer patients undergoing treatment for cancer at the Institute of Cancer in Tehran. A factor analysis supported 4 factors. Factor one, Pain Permanence, consists of 4 items addresses the beliefs that pain will not change in the future. Factor two, Self-Blame consists of 3 items and reflects the patients’ beliefs that they are the appropriate target for blame for their pain experience. Factor three, Pain Stability, consists of 4 items and taps into the belief that pain is quite stable and present all the time and factor four, Mysteriousness, consists of 4 items and addresses the belief that pain is an aversive event that is poorly understood. These factors had satisfactory reliability (internal consistency), the Chronbach’s alphas for the subscales ranged from 0.70 to 0.77. These factors were then correlated with averages of pain intensity and pain interference with daily activities as well as with some measures of general health indices. Higher scores on each belief were positively and significantly associated with more severe pain and higher levels of pain interference. Also, higher scores on Pain Constancy, Pain Permanence and Mysteriousness were significantly associated with some, but not all general health indexes. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses revealed that stronger belief on Pain Stability was an independent and significant predictor of the severity of pain and pain interference after controlling for the possible confounding effects of age of the patients. Also, stronger belief in Pain Stability was an independent and significant predictor of Bodily pain, General Health and Vitality, stronger belief in Pain Permanence was an independent and significant predictor of General Health and stronger belief on pain as a mystery was an independent and significant and predictor of weaker General and Mental Health conditions. These findings are particularly significant because the relationships were controlled for the possible effects of patients’ pain severity. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Domestic violence is considered as one of the most prevalent problems in families around the world that often goes unreported. This phenomenon includes, both, violence against the child and the spouse. In general, the result of most of the studies done in this area indicates that the underlying causes of this phenomenon include socio-cultural, family, and personal factors. In other words, these studies have identified the causes of domestic violence at different levels of the society, namely socio-cultural and individual factors which can lead to the occurrence of family violence.Given the importance of domestic violence and its physical and psychological impact on family, the present study attempted to identify the main factors which cause the occurrence of domestic violence in Tehrani families. To do this, researcher-made questionnaires were distributed amongst couples referring to family courts to file for divorce because of domestic violence. Our results showed that men identified factors such as lack of verbal communication and their wife’s complaint’s about children were mostly the main causes of their disagreements. On the other hand, women believed that factors such as husbands’ overprotection, complaint about food and lack of cooperation in house chores were the main causes of disagreements. Furthermore, the obtained results indicated significant relationship between domestic violence and false cultural beliefs. Therefore, the present study showed that in order to explain domestic violence one needs to take into account a variety of factors which is an indication of the complexity of this undesirable phenomenon.

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of social class on the patient’s perception of illness symptoms and pain, in framework of the Leventhal’s Self-Regulatory Model (SRM) of illness behavior. To this aim, the study was performed through a periodic survey. Data were collected from 146 patients with confirmed rheumatoid arthritis who referred to two centers providing RA care.The data gathering instrument used was Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R). The results showed significant differences among patients with different class origin regarding illness perception. In addition to, the comparisons among patient’s responses to 10 dimensions of illness perception also showed significant differences among three social classes regarding three dimensions of illness perception, i.e. treatment control, illness coherence and personal control. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that settlement location in step 1, insurance status and times of reference to physician in step 2, and social class in step 3, explained for 4.5%, 17.9%, and 2.6% of the variance in illness perception.

The aim of present study was to investigate some psychometric features of quality of life questionnaire (Q L Q). QLQ developed by Evance and Cope in 1989, for assessing adult quality of life. It includes 16 dimensions and totally consisting of 192 questions. The Major assumption of the questionnaire is that the behavior of adults in response to particular aspects of environment could be representative of his/ her quality of life. Thus QLQ has tried to identify a multidimensional measure of an individual’s behavior .In this study 400 teachers (200 men, 200 women) were selected through stepwise clustering procedure from different schools of Tehran north; south; east, and west regions. Obtained results showed appropriate Chronbach Alpha for total as well as for the 1st and 2nd parts of questionnaire. The reliability of the test and correlation between the two halves of the questionnaire was also adequate.Test-retest coefficient of correlation for all the 16 sub-scales including QLQ were positive & meaningful. On the other hand, following author’s view, each and every item in a sub-scale having more correlation with sub-scales other than its own was omitted, and finally 163 items remained in the questionnaire. Comparing results between men and women as well as Iranian and non-Iranian samples indicating a significant difference for some sub-scales, although the difference between Iranians and non-Iranians for thirteen sub-scales are more obvious. Norm selection for Iranians was done on the basis of original items in the questionnaire and moreover, omitted items are presented in related tables.

Stress has been investigated from different points of view. One of the most important approaches to stress is Person- Environment fit. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Person- Environment fit model to stress and its reflection to physical and psychological disorders. Subjects were 985 oil petroleum workers with an average age and experience, of 42.5 and 19 years respectively, who were selected from eight working groups. They filled out a self-administered questionnaire concerning Person-Environment and job stress. Besides the self-administered questionnaire 111 principals completed a questionnaire about these workers. All subjects completed SCL-90-R questionnaire too. Results indicated that, there was no conformity between Person and Environment in two dimensions of Values- Supplies (V-S) fit and Demands- Abilities (D-A) fit. Moreover, results showed significant differences between the view of principals and workers concerning evaluation of their fitness to the environment. Also, the result of stepwise regression indicated that personal abilities, environmental demands and environmental supplies had negative relation with job stress, where as personal values had a positive relation with it. Finally, another stepwise regression showed that from D-A and V-S; only the latter entered the regression model and had significant effect on job stress. Therefore results suggested that person- Environment fit model is an appropriate model for formulating stress.

The present paper aims at studying the Islamic judicial approach to clinical hypnotism. To investigate the Islamic order concerning hypnotism, first, the nature of hypnotism was determined, then with a reference to the Islamic and religious sources it became clear that the Islamic rule cannot be precisely and directly inferred from these sources, therefore it should be deduced and extracted from those sources. Finally, It was indicated that Islam permits the learning, teaching and application of hypnotism.