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  Background and Aim: Familiarity with mental status of students at the beginning of education has a basic role in acquiring mental health and their academic achievement. Thus, this study was carried out with the general objective of determining the mental health among the freshmen in their first term in Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 2009-2010.

  Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytic study was carried out on all freshmen (136 students) of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences entering the first semester in 2009-2010. The data were collected using GHQ-28 and demographic questionnaire. To determine suspicious cases, the cut-off point of total score was set as 28 and in each scale it was set as 6. The data were analyzed by SPSS software version 11 using descriptive and analytical statistics (Chi-square and T-test). The significant level was set as 0.05.

  Results: This study showed that 31.6% of students are suspected to have psychological disorders. These disorders among males and females were 27% and 33 % (p=0.599), and among single and married students were 31% and 33% (p=0.909), respectively. But each of these differences in demographic factors was not statistically significant. The comparison of the mean scores in test scales showed that the mean scores of social dysfunction (9 ± 3.65) and somatization (4.95 ± 3.13) were more than anxiety (4.15 ± 3.55) and depression (2.07 ± 2.89) scales, respectively. By using the cut-off point 6 at these scales, it was indicated that the students have a bad condition on social dysfunction and somatization, but there were not significant differences between these scores and gender (p=0.891), marital status (p=0.220) and academic courses (p=0.455).

  Conclusion: With regard to these results, symptoms related to social conflict at the beginning of study in students were more common than other symptoms. Confirming the existence of mental disorders in students requires more psychological investigation and assessment for students. Thus, providing counseling and psychological services based on the findings are recommended.

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 Abstract

  Background and Aims: Quality in educational system deserves special importance and its purpose is the maximum use of resources. Also, evaluation plays a fundamental role in quality improvement. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the internal evaluation of community and mental health nursing department of Gonabad university of medical sciences.

  Materials and Methods: This study was a descriptive one. The sample included faculty members, managers, students and related resources as well as the documents of community and mental health nursing department of Gonabad university of medical sciences. A non-random selection based on the objective was used for their selection. Data collection tools were a questionnaire and a checklist. Moreover, observation, inquiry and focus group discussion were used to collect data. The data were analyzed via descriptive statistics.

  Results: Evaluation resulted in 8 factors, 41 criteria and 212 markers that were studied and indicated that the total score of facilities and educational equipments were the highest (92.18%). The minimum score was allocated to educational courses, academic and nonacademic curricula (55.55%).

  Conclusion: The department should attempt to maintain and promote the items with desired status according to progress of science and technology, they also should try to improve the factors that did not get high score on internal evaluation, by careful planning. University administrators also should provide necessary resources and good conditions to improve the group and achieve the best conditions.

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  Abstract

  Background and Aim : Parenting style as one of the basic functions of parents has an important role at the later stages of life. This research has been accomplished to determine the effect of parenting styles on self- efficacy and mental health of students.

  Materials and Methods : This descriptive-analytical research has been done on 210 students (105 males and 105 females) among 3757 humanity students of Payam-e-Noor and Azad Universities in Neyshabour who were selected by multilayer cluster sampling method. The subjects were tested by child rearing self-efficacy and GHQ-28 questionnaires. The data were analyzed applying one-way ANOVA, two-factor (F), and Tukey test.

  Results : The results indicated that parenting styles had a significant influence on self-efficacy of students (p= 0.0064). There was a significant effect on increasing self-efficacy in authoritative style compared with permissive style (p=0.0001) and the authoritarian style (p=0.01). Also, parenting styles had a significant effect on mental health condition (p=0.027). Parenting styles had different significant effects on mental health of students. Authoritative style had an effect more than that of the authoritarian style (p=0.0078) and permissive style more than authoritarian style (p=0.018).

  Conclusion : Regarding the effect of parenting styles on self-efficacy and mental health which is of great importance in students, teaching programs about parenting styles is recommended for parents at different levels.

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 Abstract

  Background and Aim: Mental health of war veterans' spouses and martyrs' widows is expected to be more susceptible due to their specific stresses. This study aims to find the mental health situation related to different variables.

  Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study. One hundred martyrs' widows and the same number of war veterans' spouses were selected and divided into two groups by systematic randomized sampling from among the list of those followed up by Zahedan War Veterans Foundation. Mental health of the individuals in the study was assessed by "General Health Questionnaire" and also semi-structural interviews. The data were analyzed by ANOVA and Toky Post Hoc Test.

  Results : The results revealed that the mean scores of both groups and also 70% of the whole number of contributors in the study were higher than the GHQ cut-off point. Comparing the means in GHQ scores of the two groups showed no statistically significant difference. Women whose husbands had physical injuries showed a better mental health than those with mentally ill husbands (p=0.001).

  Conclusion: The findings of this study in concordance with other similar researches confirm that generally martyrs' widows and war veterans' spouses suffer from low level of mental health. The relationship between the type of injury and mental health of veteran' spouses calls for special cares and services for different groups.

 

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Aims: Hypochondrias is a kind of psychiatric disorder that refers to a person who despite having physical health, always complaints of pain. The present study was investigated the prevalence of Hypochondrias and effective factors in population of 20-50 years old in Gonabad city. Methods: This study was performed on 400 randomly selected populations of 20-50 years old in Gonabad city. Persons with a known previous psychiatric or medical disorder or defectiveness were excluded. All the samples filled the demographic questions and Evans hypochondrias questionnaires including 36 items. Then, data was analyzed using appropriate statistical descriptive and analytic tests such as independent t and ANOVA. Results: In the present study, the prevalence of hypochondrias among the populations of 20-50 years old was %39.2 at the borderline level and 28.8% at the disorder level. Twenty and eight percent of cases with hypochondriac disorder showed mild while 8% had moderate symptoms. This disorder was significantly more prevalent in age groups under 30 than other group (P=0.01). hypochondriasis was significantly prevalence in singlepeople (P=0.05). There was no sign of association with Sex (P=0.77), education (P=0.11) and Job (P=0.08). Conclusion: The present study demonstrated a higher prevalence of hypochondrias in population of 50-20 years old in Gonabad city compared to those on Global Statistics. This disorder was significantly more prevalent in age group under 30 than other age group. Hence, it seems evaluation related factors in hypochondriasis and interventional treatment for its reduction.

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Aims: Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder that affects the quality of life and mental health of the patients. There are different recommendations about doing effective exercise for diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of two aerobic trainings and a detraining periods on quality of life and mental health in women with type 2 diabetes.

Materials & Methods: In this Semi-experimental research in 2011 in Sabzevar City, Iran, 33 women with type 2 diabetes in 40-60 years age range were selected purposefully and were divided into 3 groups each contain 11 samples; control, daily 5-week aerobic exercise and every other day 10-week aerobic exercise. Aerobic training was conduct with an intensity of 60-70% of maximum heart rate for 30-60min per session. The research instruments were the Quality of Life and Mental Health questionnaires. Data analyses were done in SPSS 18 software by repeated measures ANOVA, one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests.

Findings: There were significant differences between quality of life (p=0.002) and mental health (p=0.04) of training groups and control group, but two training groups were not significantly different. There were also significant differences in physical (p=0.004) and psychosocial (p=0.004) domains of quality of life between the three groups at 5- and 10-weeks after the start of the exercises.

Conclusion: Daily 5-week and every other day 10-week aerobic exercises improves mental health and quality of life in women with type 2 diabetes, but the benefits are not maintained after 2 months of detraining.

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Aims: Diabetes, as a common metabolic disease, can have significant psychological consequences and cause problems in daily life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediator role of sense of coherence in the relationship between duration and number of physical complications of diabetes with mental health in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Instruments & Methods: In this descriptive-correlational study, 150 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus referred to Parsian Diabetes Clinic of Mashhad in 2015 were selected using available sampling. Data were collected using a checklist of demographic information and physical complications of diabetes, Sense of Coherence Scale (SOD) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Data were analyzed by Lisrel and SPSS 18 softwares, using Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis method.
Findings: The duration of disease, the number of physical complications of diabetes and the lack of mental health had a negative and significant correlation with the sense of coherence. There was a positive and significant correlation between duration and number of physical complications of diabetes mellitus with mental health problems (p<0.01). The proposed model was good-fitting model. The indirect effect of duration and number of physical complications of diabetes mellitus on mental health was greater than their direct effect (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Sense of coherence as a mediator in the relationship between duration of disease and number of physical complications with mental health in type 2 diabetic patients plays an important role in controlling the physical and psychological complications of diabetes.
 
 

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Aims: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive and chronic disease of central nervous system with different symptoms and physical-psychological disabling effects, which brings about various problems for the patient. The present study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) on mental health of women with multiple sclerosis.
Materials & Methods: The present research was a semi-empirical intervention conducted by pretest-posttest with control group design. The research population included all the women with active case file in MS association of Tehran in 2016. The sample was composed of 30 female patients which were selected by available sampling method and based on exclusion and inclusion criteria of the study and their scores in the questionnaire. The sample were assigned into experimental and control groups (15 individuals per group) by random assignment method. The study tool was general health questionnaire (GHQ) of Goldberg and Hiller (1979). After conducting the pretest for both groups, subjects of the experimental group received eight weekly 2-hour sessions of CFT in a group format. The control group was put in the waiting list. The data were analyzed through univariate covariance analysis (ANCOVA) in SPSS v18.
Findings: Results indicated that, after the posttest, there was a significant difference between mean scores of mental health among experimental and control groups. In other words, CFT led to increased mental health in subjects of the intervention group compared to the control group (p<0.01, F=45.49).
Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, the compassion-focused therapy reduces psychological problems and improves mental health of patients with multiple sclerosis through increasing their internal awareness, non-judgmental acceptance, empathy, and consistent attention to internal emotions. It is recommended that MS associations across Iran would use this therapeutic method for enhancing psychological health of patients.

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Aims: The emergence of COVID-19 disease has created significant stress and anxiety for health care workers. This study aimed to investigate the stressors and coping strategies in the staff of Allameh Bohlool Hospital in Gonabad City, Iran, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease.
Methods & Materials: This cross-sectional study was performed on 252 employees of Allameh Bohlool Hospital in Gonabad from March 2020 to April 2020. Study tools included a brief form of coping styles (Brief-COPE) and a researcher-made questionnaire of stressors due to the emergence of COVID-19 among health care workers. The obtained data were analyzed using linear regression and ordinal regression models at the significance level of 0.05.
Findings: About 74.2%, 69.4%, 52.7%, 52.7%, and 99.2% of the hospital staff had moderate to high stress in the domains of internal, family-social, workplace-related, infection control, and government measures, respectively. The degree of using adaptive and maladaptive coping styles used by staff were 52.0% and 23.8% at the moderate to the high level, respectively. Maladaptive coping styles had a positive and significant relationship with stress intensity so that for each unit increase in maladaptive coping score, the odds of experiencing higher levels of stress increased 1.24 to 1.45 times (P<0.001). Also, the odds of experiencing higher levels of stress in those who had sports activities was 24% to 76% lower (P=0.003).
Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicated a high level of stress among hospital staff. Also, the use of maladaptive coping styles and sports activities had a significant positive and negative relationship with stress intensity, respectively. Therefore, designing effective interventions focusing on reducing maladaptive coping patterns among hospital staff and encouraging people to engage in sports activities can help manage stress as much as possible due to the outbreak of COVID-19 disease.