Effects of Transfer Training on Musculoskeletal Pain in the Caregiver of a Stroke Patient: a Case Report

The purpose of this case report was to evaluate the effectiveness of training of transfer techniques to a caregiver of a person who had suffered a stroke in decreasing musculoskeletal pain, depression and anxiety. This study adopted a single subject research design to evaluate the effectiveness of transfer-techniques training on musculoskeletal pain, depression, and anxiety in a 25-year-old female caregiver of a person with a stroke. The study was completed in four phases, including a baseline evaluation (1st and 3rd week), training (3rd, 5th and 7th week), post-training (9th week), and follow-up evaluation (11th week). During the 1st week, demographic and descriptive information (such as age, time since diagnosis, cognition and independence of daily living) were collected from the stroke patient. Also, pain severity, anxiety and depression levels of the caregiver were evaluated. In weeks 3, 5 and 7, transfer training was undertaken. The patient was involved in the training with the caregiver under the supervision of an occupational therapist in their own home. The effectiveness of the training with regard to musculoskeletal pain and depression and anxiety levels of the caregiver was evaluated in the 5th, 9th and 11th weeks. The data were analyzed using a visual analysis of trends and levels. The results showed a decrease in pain severity, anxiety and depression during training and post-training. The changes continued during the follow-up stage. This study suggests promising results for the effectiveness of the transfer-techniques training and justifies further clinical trials. A larger trial is required to confirm the effectiveness of transfer training in improving pain management in caregivers of stroke survivors

The Psychometric Properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test

Background: Substance abuse is a critical problem in most countries, especially in developing ones. Earlydetection is the pre-requisite of early control, for which reliable and valid tools are required. In the presentstudy, we aimed at measuring the psychometric properties of the 10-item Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10)in Iranian individuals.Methods: After translation and back-translation of the questionnaire, 244 adults were recruited from TehranMegacity, Iran, and completed the questionnaires. Participants were recruited by a multistage randomizedcluster sampling method. Reliability was determined by Cronbach’s alpha. Also, construct validity wasevaluated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).Findings: The internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the total score of the Persianversion of DAST-10 was 0.93. EFA evoked only one factor for DAST-10. The CFA for 1-factor models forDAST-10 indicated an acceptable fit for the proposed models.Conclusion: The results prove desirable reliability and validity of the Persian version of the DAST which canbe utilized as a screening instrument for drug abuse among Iranian adults

Emotion Regulation Characteristics Development in Iranian Primary School Pupils

Objectives: Emotion regulations refer to the ability of experiencing emotions as a basic human capacity and the experience of the basic emotions happiness, anger, sadness and fear are considered as reular characteristics among nations. In school-age children, problems in socioemotional development typically shows themselves as challenging, socially disruptive paterns of behavior. The purpose of the present study was to understand Emotion Regulation characteristics in Iranian primary school pupils and whether Iranian children enable to identify common emotions. Methods: Participants included 900 children, 9 to 10 years, from elementary schools from 21 provinces in Iran. In pilot work we presented 200 children with four hypothetical vignettes of the kind typically used in display rule research. In the main study children’s knowledge regarding hiding their emotions was assessed through a structured interview. The participants were presented with the interview questions after the vignettes. The answers were coded by two people and the interrater reliability was high. The children were assessed on the basis of four common emotions:Happiness, Anger,Fear,and, Sadness. Results: The analysis of the data indicated that: 1) all children were enabled to identify and differentiate all four emotions from each other, most of students hide their happiness, anger, fear and sadness, they hide their emotions in specific situation such as school and home, hide happiness and anger against peers and hide fear and sadness in front of adults. Discussion: The study indicates that Iranian children not only differ from other culture peers in the amount of display rule use in daily life, but also in the situations they report using it and their motives for doing so they suppress their overall emotions more frequently, especially in presence of family and for pro-social and self-protective reasons. These findings provides the basic knowledge about Iranian children emotional expression development which can be used in cultural, educational and therapeutic contexts

Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Aged People: Standardization of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire in Iran

Objectives: Emotional regulation refers to strategies that reduce, maintain or increase an emotion in people. The purpose of this study is to standard the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire in Tehran aged population. Methods: The sample was selected randomly from 20 Jahandidhgan associations and consisted of 500 aged people from whom 338 people remained till the end of study. In order to define the dimensional structure a Principal Component Analysis with Varimax-rotation on item level was performed. Results: The alpha coefficients of the various subscales across the diverse populations was 0/798 but the items 5, 7, 31, 6, 8, 32, 30, 29 and 12 had week co efficiency (0.84) which was consider as subscale. Discussion: After some steps of analysis with Varimax-rotation, 7 factors was created and the 8th factors which was categorized as subscale was named as "acceptance of negative happenings". These results prove that the cognitive coping strategies can be used in Iranian aging population

Delayed Referral in Children with Speech and Language Disorders for Rehabilitation Services

Objectives: Speech and language development is one of the main aspects of evolution in humans and is one of the most complex brain functions such that it is referred to as one of the highest cortical functions such as thinking, reading and writing. Speech and language disorders are considered as a major public health problem because they cause many secondary complications in the childhood and adulthood period which affect one’s socioeconomic status overall. Methods: This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was to identify all potential factors influencing delay in referral of children with speech and language disorders for receiving rehabilitation services, based on literature as well as the families’ and experts’ points of view. In the second phase of the study which was designed in a case-control manner, actual factors influencing the time of referral were compared between two groups of participants. Results: Parental knowledge of their children's problems related to speech and language had no significant impact on the on-time referral for treatment for children with speech and language disorders. After the child definite diagnosis of speech and language disorders, parents’ information about the consequences of speech and language disorders, had a significant influence on early referral for speech and language pathology services. Discussion: In this study family structure plays an important role in the early identification of children with developmental disorders. Two-parent families had access to more resources than single-parent families. In addition, single-parent families may be more involved in the work and business of life

Effects of Transfer Training on Musculoskeletal pain in the Caregiver of a Stroke Patient: A Case Report

The purpose of this case report was to evaluate the effectiveness of training of transfer techniques to a caregiver of a person who had suffered a stroke in decreasing musculoskeletal pain, depression and anxiety. This study adopted a single subject research design to evaluate the effectiveness of transfer-techniques training on musculoskeletal pain, depression, and anxiety in a 25-year-old female caregiver of a person with a stroke. The study was completed in four phases, including a baseline evaluation (1st and 3rd week), training (3rd, 5th and 7th week), post-training (9th week), and follow-up evaluation (11th week). During the 1st week, demographic and descriptive information  (such as age, time since diagnosis, cognition and independence of daily living) were collected from the stroke patient. Also, pain severity, anxiety and depression levels of the caregiver were evaluated. In weeks 3, 5 and 7, transfer training was undertaken. The patient was involved in the training with the caregiver under the supervision of an occupational therapist in their own home. The effectiveness of the training with regard to musculoskeletal pain and depression and anxiety levels of the caregiver was evaluated in the 5th, 9th and 11th weeks. The data were analyzed using a visual analysis of trends and levels. The results showed a decrease in pain severity, anxiety and depression during training and post-training. The changes continued during the follow-up stage. This study suggests promising results for the effectiveness of the transfer-techniques training and justifies further clinical trials. A larger trial is required to confirm the effectiveness of transfer training in improving pain management in caregivers of stroke survivors

Co-Morbidity of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Tourette Syndrome

Objectives: Tourette syndrome is a disease with vocal and motor tics. This disorder is co-morbid with many psychiatric disorders, among which obsessive-compulsive disorder is the most common. Methods: During a one-year period, 30 patients with Tourette disorder were studied at an adolescent psychiatry referral clinic. It was an analytical-descriptive study. Subjects were selected by convenience sampling. The control group was selected from students in Tehran schools similar to the first group in terms of age and gender. K-SADS questionnaire was used to examine the existence of obsessive-compulsive disorder in both groups. The results were analyzed with SPSS software. Results: The apparent co-morbidity of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette syndrome was seen in this study, such that 53% of patients affected with it had obsessive-compulsive disorder. Statistics obtained was higher compared to earlier data. Although this co-morbidity was somewhat different in the two genders, it was not considered statistically significant (80% girls and 48% boys). Discussion: More focus should be laid upon the co-morbidity between Tourette and OCD. It is recommended to study patients with Tourette syndromemore extensively in terms of co-morbidity with other psychiatric disorders, especially the obsessive-compulsive disorder

Needle and syringe sharing among Iranian drug injectors

Abstract Objective The role of needle and syringe sharing behavior of injection drug users (IDUs) in spreading of blood-borne infections – specially HIV/AIDS – is well known. However, very little is known in this regard from Iran. The aim of our study was to determine the prevalence and associates of needle and syringe sharing among Iranian IDUs. Methods In a secondary analysis of a sample of drug dependents who were sampled from medical centers, prisons and streets of the capitals of 29 provinces in the Iran in 2007, 2091 male IDUs entered. Socio-demographic data, drug use data and high risk behaviors entered to a logistic regression to determine independent predictors of lifetime needle and syringe sharing. Results 749(35.8%) reported lifetime experience of needle and syringe sharing. The likelihood of lifetime needle and syringe sharing was increased by female gender, being jobless, having illegal income, drug use by family members, pleasure/enjoyment as causes of first injection, first injection in roofless and roofed public places, usual injection at groin, usual injection at scrotum, lifetime experience of nonfatal overdose, and history of arrest in past year and was decreased by being alone at most injections. Conclusion However this data has been extracted from cross-sectional design and we can not conclude causation, some of the introduced variables with association with needle and syringe sharing may be used in HIV prevention programs which target reducing syringe sharing among IDUs.</p