Iranian family caregivers' challenges and issues in caring of multiple sclerosis patients: A descriptive explorative qualitative study.

BACKGROUND The broad spectrum of problems caused by multiple sclerosis (MS) imposes heavy responsibility to caregivers in caring of their patients. Therefore, they encounter many issues and challenges in this situation. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and challenges of MS family caregivers. MATERIALS AND METHODS A qualitative design, based on a thematic analysis approach, was used to reach the study aim. Data were collected and analyzed concurrently through in-depth unstructured interviews, field notes, and observations that were held with 23 participants (14 family caregivers and 9 MS patients) at two referral centers in Ahvaz, Iran. FINDINGS THREE MAJOR THEMES WERE EXTRACTED FROM THE ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSCRIPTS: "emotional exhaustion of caregivers," "uncertain atmosphere of caring," and "insularity care." The first theme consisted of three subthemes: "stressful atmosphere of caring," "conflict and animism," and "continuing distress affecting the caregiver." The second theme consisted of three subthemes: "unstable and complicacy of disease," "caring with trial and error," and "frequent hospitalization of patients," and the third theme consisted of two subthemes: "caring gap and disintegration" and "lack of sufficient support." CONCLUSIONS This study will be useful to healthcare system for managing the challenges of MS patients' family caregivers. Improving the conditions and performance of family caregivers is crucial in order to provide high-quality care to people with MS

Evaluation of quality of life therapy for parents of children with obsessive–compulsive disorders in Iran

Previous research has provided evidence on the effectiveness of CBT in the symptomatic improvement of children with obsessive–compulsive disorders. There is also increasing recognition of the importance of involving parents and families in treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term effectiveness of such an intervention that promoted family strengths [(quality of life therapy (QoLT)] for mothers of children with obsessive–compulsive disorders (OCD). The sample consisted of 40 children with OCD and their mothers, who had been referred to clinics in Esfahan city in Iran. Mothers were randomly allocated to an experimental (QoLT) and waiting list control group. Mothers participated in eight QoLT group sessions over 4 weeks. QoLT incorporated CBT techniques in managing OCD symptoms. Measures were completed pre- and post-intervention by both groups. Children completed the Yale–Brown obsession compulsion scale for Children, the Revised children's manifest anxiety scale, and the brief multidimensional student’s life satisfaction scale; mothers completed the quality of life inventory (QoLI). QoLT was associated with decrease in OCD and anxiety symptoms and increase in children's satisfaction in the global, family and environment domains, as well as with increased QoLI scores in their mothers. Parenting interventions like QoLT can complement individual modalities such as CBT in the presence of family-related difficulties. This can be particularly applicable in countries and settings with limited resources and high stigma of child mental health problems

Investigating the Effect of Training Career Path Skills based on Super’s Career Development Theory on Academic Self-Concept of Students of Isfahan University

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of training career path skills based on Super’s Development Theory on students’ academic self-concept. The study is a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of all students of University of Isfahan year 2018. Using available sampling method, 30 people were selected and randomly, 15 of them were placed in the test group and 15 in the control group. The data collection tool was Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS) (Reynolds et al, 1980). The career path skills were trained to the test group for ten 90-minute sessions in groups, and no training was provided to the test group. The data were analyzed using SPSS software at the level of descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviation and at the level of inferential statistics by covariance analysis method. The results showed that training career path skills based on Super’s Development Theory has a significant positive effect on students’ academic self-concept

Care experiences and challenges of inpatients' companions in Iran's health care context: A qualitative study

Among the clients of nursing services, family members, as patient companions, serve as both caregiver and care receiver, such that specialized care is delivered by nurses and primary care is delegated to the patient companion. Hence, care experiences of all patient companions are not the same. The aim of this study is to investigate the care experiences of inpatients' companions at hospital. This work is a qualitative study conducted according to epistemiological methodology. The participants were 13 patient companions who were selected according to purposive sampling. Data were gathered throughout in-depth, unstructured interviews and then analyzed according to Colaizzi method. Overall, six themes were generated in this study, consisting of caregiver's burnout, burden of care, resistance against tension, caregiver's care function, needs, and organizational barriers. The findings demonstrated that the patients' companions are faced with numerous stressful factors during their patients' hospital stay, and hospitals' negligence of the companions' information and support needs to deal with complexities of care has led to increased burden of care among the companions. Meanwhile, the companions' dissatisfaction with health care delivery may bring about adverse outcomes. Therefore, hospital authorities should pay special attention to the status of patient companions as informal the caregivers and support sources of patients

Recent advances on happiness

Happiness plays essential role on building prosperity and success in any society. Happiness is one of the essential factors to reach prosperity and success in people’s life and jobs but happiness is not always the same as capability, but they may be correlated while capability is a necessary for having a happy life and happiness feeds back on capability in different ways. People who feel happy could better contribute to society and help other people build better future. This study performs a review on recently completed studies on factors, which influence happiness, new definitions of happiness. The study concentrates more on empirical investigations on the concept of happiness

The relationship between spiritual intelligence and taking responsibility with life quality

Spiritual intelligence as one of the new concepts of intelligence includes a type of adaptability and behavior of problem solving which has the highest levels of growth in different domains of cognitive, moral, emotional, interpersonal etc. and helps out the person for coordination with the surrounding phenomena and achieving internal and external integration as well as enforcement of the spiritual intelligence which is equal with obedience of God which improves the social behavior and taking responsibility. The aim of this research is determining the relationship between spiritual intelligence and responsibility with life quality of students. The population under study includes all the male students studying in guidance schools of the city of Tehran in educational year of 2012-2013 and with the use of multistage sampling method 300 students have been chosen as research sample. For this purpose, in the first stage, Tehran city has been divided into three geographical regions of North, South and Center. In the second stage, for each geographical region one educational region has been selected and in the third stage from each educational region 2 high schools have been selected and in the fourth stage from each high school five class and finally from each class 10 student have been selected randomly. For data collection, 3 standard and normalized questionnaires including King’s spiritual intelligence (2008), life quality questionnaire (SF36) of Warosherbon (2001) as well as the responsibility questionnaire of Kordloo (2010) have been used. For data analysis descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (regression analysis test) have been used. In addition to confirmation of the research hypotheses, the research results indicate that among the subscales of the spiritual intelligence, transcendental awareness have a larger share in explaining life quality of the students, such that as the transcendental awareness the influence it has on life quality increases as well and results in an increase in life quality. In addition to this, among the subscales of taking responsibility, feeling of responsibility has a larger share in explaining the life quality of the students, such that as the feeling of responsibility increases the life quality increases as well. In addition to this, other subscales of taking responsibility including feeling of security, self-esteem, feeling of belonging and taking responsibility also have positive effect on life quality of the students

Pre- and post-employment issues of bipolar patients and predisposing factors and vocational rehabilitation implications: a new perspective

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the employment issues of bipolar patients and their predisposing factors. Materials and Methods: This study was performed using the moose systematic qualitative method, by using research articles that addressed the employment issues of bipolar patients. Initially, 2204 articles were extracted but after primary and secondary screening and studying the full text finally, 15 articles were selected according to predetermined criteria. Results: The extracted employment issues of bipolar patients were divided into two general types of pre- and post-employment issues and the factors causing the employment issues.  Pre- and post- employment issues of bipolar patients were divided into three sub-domains (Unemployment, lack of productivity in the workplace, and ethical-communication problems). factors causing bipolar employment issues were divided into three domains (factors related to symptoms of the disorder, psychosocial factors and inappropriate therapeutic interventions). Discussion: Although pre- and post- employment issues of bipolar patients appear to be a major issue both in society and in researches; the underlying causes of these patients' employment issues are also important driving factors, which need attention and consideration and rehabilitation