Effects of mindful parenting training on clinical symptoms in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and parenting stress: Randomized controlled trial

Abstract Background: Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at risk of impairment in multiple domains. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of mindful parenting training in reducing clinical symptoms in children with ADHD and parenting stress of their parents. Methods: This randomized clinical trial was conducted on 2 groups (experimental and control) in 3 phases (pretest, posttest, and 8 weeks’ follow-up). Sixty children with ADHD, who had been referred by the child psychiatrist in the Iranian city of Kashan in the second half of the year 2016, were selected along with their mothers. The mothers were assigned to one of the 2 groups via permuted blocked randomization. The mothers completed the parenting stress index–short form (PSI–SF 36) and the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham Parent and Teacher rating scale (SNAP-IV). All the children in both groups received pharmacotherapy with either risperidone or Ritalin. The intervention group received 8 sessions (1 session each week, each session lasting 90 minutes) of mindful parenting training based on the Kabat-Zinn protocol. The data were analyzed using SPSS, version 20, via the t test, χ2 test, repeated measures analysis of variance, and nonparametric Friedman test. Results: This study showed a reduction in parenting stress, negative parent-child interactions, and children’s problematic characteristics in the mindful parenting training group compared with the control group in the posttest and follow-up. Our results also demonstrated a significant improvement in ADHD symptoms in the experimental group by comparison with the control group in the posttest and follow-up. Conclusion: Mindful parenting training was effective in reducing parenting stress and ADHD symptoms in our intervention group. Keywords ● Mindfulness ● Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity ● Parenting ● Stress ● Physiologica

An Item Analysis of Written Multiple-Choice Questions: Kashan University of Medical Sciences

Background: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are one of the most common types of exams used in evaluation of students in any educational setting. The question items making up these exams need to be examined if they are to meaningfully contribute to the student scores. Such characteristics are amenable to examination by item analysis. Objectives: The purpose of this research was to examine the quality of MCQs used in Nursing and Midwifery Faculty and to compare the results with the other faculties in Kashan University of Medical Science in the academic year 2008-2009. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 101 multiple-choice exams were randomly chosen for the study, and 37 exams were selected from the faculty of nursing and midwifery. The difficulty, discrimination indices and Cronbach’s Alpha were calculated for every exam and then mean values for each index were calculated by LERTAL 5.0 software purchased from Assessment Systems Corporation of the United States. Results: A total of 7062 MCQs in the university and 1793 items in the faculty of nursing and midwifery presented to the students by different instructors were analyzed. The average of difficulty index of the faculty of nursing was 0.5. The discrimination index was 0.36, and the average of Alpha-Cronbach was 0.82 in the faculty of nursing. All the values were significantly better in the faculty of nursing and midwifery compared to the rest of the university. Conclusions: The difficulty index, the discrimination index and the Alpha-Cronbach values in the faculty of nursing were within the acceptable range recommended by experts in the field of educational measurement. However, some of the tests had values less than the recommended

Evaluation of Emotional Intelligence and Job Satisfaction in Employees of Kashan Hospitals

Background: Job satisfaction and emotional intelligence are two important variables in organizational behavioral studies, and are key factors in promoting the efficiency of organizations. Objectives: The present study was conducted in order to determine the job satisfaction and emotional intelligence of employees of Kashan hospitals in 2011. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 121 employees of Kashan hospitals who were selected using random stratified method. In this study, Bar-on emotional intelligence and job satisfaction questionnaires were used. The data were analyzed using statistical methods such as odds ratio, Chi-square and Fisher's exact test. Results: The majority of employees (76%) had moderate emotional intelligence while 88.2% of them had moderate job satisfaction. In this study, there were no significant relations between emotional intelligence and variables such as sex, education, and marital and job status (P > 0.05) but significant relations were found between the age and emotional intelligence (P = 0.01). Furthermore, there was no significant relation between job satisfaction and demographic variables. Moreover, no significant relation was found between the emotional intelligence and job satisfaction (P > 0.05). Conclusions: As the majority of the staff had average level of job satisfaction and emotional intelligence and others were lower than average, it seems necessary for authorities to explore the reasons for job dissatisfaction to prevent job burnout, depression and developing a sense of helplessness in the staff. It is also recommended to hold educational workshops for the staff especially who are younger than 40 years to promote their emotional intelligence

The efficacy of aripiprazole versus risperidone as augmentation therapy in treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder: A double blind clinical trial

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the fourth common psychiatric disorder. Among the anxiety disorders, OCD has the least therapeutic response and 40-60 of OCD patients do not satisfactorily respond to the first-line standard treatment known as treatment-resistant OCD. One of the best therapeutic strategies is the augmentation therapy, which is adding antipsychotics to the standard treatment (SSRIs). Objectives: In this study, the efficacy of risperidone and aripiprazole was compared as an augmentation therapy. Methods: In this double blind randomized clinical trial, 100 patients with treatment-resistant OCD were diagnosed based on the DSM-IV-TR and were followed for twelve weeks. The patients were randomly divided into two groups of aripiprazole and risperidone and received an average daily dose of 5 mg and 1.5 mg for twelve weeks, respectively. The efficacy of treatment was measured and compared by the Yale-brown obsessive compulsive scale (Y-BOCS) at 4, 8 and 12 weeks. Results: The mean Y-BOCS score of patients in risperidone and aripiprazole groups were 25.26 ± 4.17 and 25.02 ± 4.46; respectively and had no significant difference (P = 0.79) at the beginning of the trial. At the end of the study (12th week) it was changed for the risperidone and aripiprazole groups to 20.00 ± 4.45 and 16.24 ± 4.41, respectively (P < 0.001). Furthermore, there was a significant decreasing trend of Y-BOCS scores in both groups, which was demonstrated by the repeated measurement analysis (P < 00.1). Conclusions: It was found that both aripiprazole and risperidone could be effective in treatment of treatment-resistant OCD patients. However, aripiprazole showed a higher efficacy compared to risperidone. © 2016, Author(s)

A beacon analysis-based RFID reader anti-collision protocol for dense reader environments

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is one of the major technologies for auto-identification in many applications. When multiple readers work together to improve the read rate and reliability, a dense RFID network is created. One of the most important issues to be considered in such environments is reader collision, which leads to reduced throughput. Although different schemes have been proposed to reduce reader collision, they often either require additional hardware or do not use network resources efficiently, or are not consistent with international laws and standards. In this paper, by managing and analyzing beacon messages, a new centralized scheme, which is consistent with European standards and laws, is proposed to reduce collisions and increase throughput. In the proposed scheme, by sending a priority code via a beacon message and making decisions based on the beacon messages received by readers, the available resources are used optimally, and the maximum number of readers is activated in one round. Additionally, in the proposed scheme, the priority code is initialized in such a manner that the readers access the channel fairly. The simulation results and comparison of the proposed scheme with other protocols indicate that throughput increased. Because of the increased throughput and fairness of the proposed scheme, the delay reduced compared with other schemes, and overall, the proposed scheme was superior to other centralized schemes. © 201

An efficient resource allocation scheme in a dense RFID network based on cellular learning automata

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a wireless communication technology. Radio frequencies can cause interference in a dense RFID system, thus decreasing efficiency. In recent years, many protocols have been proposed to reduce reader collisions based on multiple-access techniques. The main weakness of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)-based schemes is the random selection of resources. Additionally, they do not consider the distance between the interfering readers. Therefore, the likelihood of interference in an RFID system will be increased. To address this problem, we propose a new scheme for allocating resources to readers using a learning technique. The proposed scheme takes into account the distance between interfering readers, and these readers acquire the necessary knowledge to select new resources based on the results of the previous selection of neighboring readers using cellular learning automata. This approach leads to reduced interference in an RFID system. The proposed scheme is fully distributed and operates without hardware redundancy. In this scheme, the readers select new resources without exchanging information with each other. The simulation results show that the percentage of kicked readers decreased by more than 20, and the proposed scheme also provides higher throughput than do state-of-the-art schemes for dense reader environments and leads to further recognition of tags. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Effect of a 12-week interval running program on female primary school students with ADHD

Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the prevalent disorders in child psychiatry with the potential of damage to mental talent evolution process and socio-emotional skills. This study aimed to examine the effect of an aerobic running program on ADHD among the primary school girls. Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial study, 120 female students with ADHD were purposefully selected from the primary schools in Kashan during 2011-12. The child symptom inventory-DSM-IV version (CSI-4) was completed by the students' teachers and parents and then 30 students with the severe ADHD were divided into the control and experimental groups using the randomized block method. The experimental group performed a 12-week interval running program, 3 times per week, with a maximum heart rate of 60-85. Data were analyzed using covariance analysis.Results: Results showed that a 12-week interval running program had beneficial effects on ADHD in the experimental compared to the control group (

Economic activity and suicides: Causal evidence from macroeconomic shocks in England and Wales

The relationship between economic activity and suicides has been the subject of much scrutiny, but the focus in the extant literature has been almost exclusively on estimating associations rather than causal effects. In this paper, using data from England and Wales between January 1, 1997 and December 31, 2017, we propose a plausible set of assumptions to estimate the causal impacts of well-known macroeconomic variables on the daily suicide rate. Our identification strategy relies on scheduled macroeconomic announcements and professional economic forecasts. An important advantage of using these variables to model suicide rates is that they can efficiently capture the elements of ‘surprise or shock’ via the observed difference between how the economy actually performed and how it was expected to perform. Provided that professional forecasts are unbiased and efficient, the estimated ‘surprises or shocks’ are ‘as good as random’, and therefore are exogenous. We employ time series regressions and present robust evidence that these exogenous macroeconomic shocks affect the suicide rate. Overall, our results are consistent with economic theory that shocks that reduce estimated permanent income, and therefore expected lifetime utility, can propel suicide rates. Specifically, at the population level, negative shocks to consumer confidence and house prices accelerate the suicide rate. However, there is evidence of behavioural heterogeneity between sexes, states of the economy, and levels of public trust in government. Negative shocks to the retail price index (RPI) raise the suicide rate for males. Negative shocks to the growth rate in gross domestic product (GDP) raise the population suicide rate when the economy is doing poorly. When public trust in government is low, increases in the unemployment rate increase the suicide rate for females