An epidemiological survey of psychiatric disorders in Iran

BACKGROUND: The nation-wide epidemiological survey of psychiatric disorders in term of lifetime prevalence is not adequately known in Iran. The prevalence of lifetime psychiatric disorders was estimated among the population of aged 18 and over on gender, age group, educational level, occupational status, marital status, and residential area. METHODS: The subjects were 25,180 individuals selected through a clustered random sampling method. The psychiatric disorders were diagnosed on the bases of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV criteria. It is the first study in which the structured psychiatric interview administered to a representative sample of the Iranian population age 18 and over by the 250 trained clinical psychologist interviewers. The data was entered through EPI-Info software twice in an attempt to prevent any errors and SPSS-11 statistical software was also used for analyses. The odds ratios and their confidence intervals estimated by using logistic regression. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The prevalence of psychiatric disorders was 10.81%. It was more common among females than males (14.34% vs. 7.34%, P < 0.001). The prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders were 8.35% and 4.29% respectively. The prevalence of psychotic disorders was 0.89%; neuro-cognitive disorders, 2.78% and dissociative disorders, 0.77%. Among mood disorders, major depressive disorder (2.98%) and among anxiety disorders, phobic disorder (2.05%) had the higher prevalence. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among divorced and separated 22.31%; residents of urban areas 11.77%; illiterates 13.80%; householders 15.48%; unemployed 12.33% that were more than other groups. CONCLUSION: The mental health pattern in Iran is similar to the western countries, but it seems that the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in Iran may be lower than these countries. It is estimated that at least about 7 millions of Iranian population suffer from one or more of the psychiatric disorders. It shows the importance of the role of the psychiatric disorders in providing preventive and management programs in Iran

Fully robotic social environment for teaching and practicing affective interaction: Case of teaching emotion recognition skills to children with autism spectrum disorder, a pilot study

21st century brought along a considerable decrease in social interactions, due to the newly emerged lifestyle around the world, which became more noticeable recently of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, children with autism spectrum disorder have further complications regarding their social interactions with other humans. In this paper, a fully Robotic Social Environment (RSE), designed to simulate the needed social environment for children, especially those with autism is described. An RSE can be used to simulate many social situations, such as affective interpersonal interactions, in which observational learning can take place. In order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed RSE, it has been tested on a group of children with autism, who had difficulties in emotion recognition, which in turn, can influence social interaction. An A-B-A single case study was designed to show how RSE can help children with autism recognize four basic facial expressions, i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, and fear, through observing the social interactions of two robots speaking about these facial expressions. The results showed that the emotion recognition skills of the participating children were improved. Furthermore, the results showed that the children could maintain and generalize their emotion recognition skills after the intervention period. In conclusion, the study shows that the proposed RSE, along with other rehabilitation methods, can be effective in improving the emotion recognition skills of children with autism and preparing them to enter human social environments

The relationship between metacognitive beliefs and anxiety and depression disorder

Background : Metacognitive beliefs interact with emotional disorders and this matter can be used in educational programs and psychological interventions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between metacognitive beliefs and anxiety and depression. Materials and Methods: In this correlation study, at first, 140 persons were chosen with cluster sampling method. They completed 3 questionnaires including Cartwright-Hatton and Wells metacognition questionnaire, Cattell Anxiety questionnaire and Beck depression questionnaire. Then we used multiple regression, in order to analyze 117 persons' data ( 84 males, 33 females), who had average age 31.6 with standard deviation 6.8. Results: The results indicated that there is a positive relationship between metacognitive beliefs anxiety and depression. Metacognitive beliefs, correlation coefficient with anxiety was 0.59 and 0.67 with depression. Two metacognitive belief's components, cognitive competence and uncontrollability, can predict 40% of anxiety variance and 50% of depression variance. Moreover, belief's component about uncontrollability and belief about cognitive competence have positive relations with trait anxiety and belief's component about uncontrollability has positive relation with state anxiety. Conclusion: The results of this study, like other previous researches, show that paying attention to metacognitive beliefs in educational programs and psychological interventions can be effective in prevention, decrease and treatment of emotional disorders

The Polarity-Dependent Effects of the Bilateral Brain Stimulation on Working Memory

Introduction: Working memory plays a critical role in cognitive processes which are central to our daily life. Neuroimaging studies have shown that one of the most important areas corresponding to the working memory is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLFPC). This study was aimed to assess whether bilateral modulation of the DLPFC using a noninvasive brain stimulation, namely transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), modi.es the working memory function in healthy adults.Methods: In a randomized sham-controlled cross-over study, 60 subjects (30 Males) received sham and active tDCS in two subgroups (anode left/cathode right and anode right/cathode left) of the DLPFC. Subjects were presented working memory n-back task while the reaction time and accuracy were recorded.Results: A repeated measures, mixed design ANOVA indicated a signi.cant difference between the type of stimulation (sham vs. active) in anodal stimulation of the left DLPFC with cathodal stimulation of the right DLPFC [F(1,55)= 5.29,  P=0.019], but not the inverse polarity worsened accuracy in the 2-back working memory task. There were also no statistically signi.cant changes in speed of working memory [F(1,55)= 0.458 ,P=0.502] related to type or order of stimulation..Discussion: The results would imply to a polarity dependence of bilateral tDCS of working memory. Left anodal/ right cathodal stimulation of DLPFC could impair working memory, while the reverser stimulation had no effect. Meaning that bilateral stimulation of DLFC would not be a useful procedure to improve working memory. Further studies are required to understand subtle effects of different tDCS stimulation/inhibition electrode positioning on the working memory

Differentiating Post–Digital Nannying Autism Syndrome from Autism Spectrum Disorders in Young Children: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study

Excessive exposure of young children to digital devices has increased in recent years. Much research has shown that early excessive screentime is associated with autistic-like symptoms. This study aimed to differentiate children with Post–Digital Nannying Autism Syndrome (PDNAS) from children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing children (TDC), both behaviorally and cognitively. This study is comparative and cross-sectional and included three groups of children. The first group consisted of 15 young children with subthreshold autism symptoms. They had not received a formal diagnosis of ASD and had been exposed to digital devices for more than half of their waking time. The second group consisted of 15 young children with ASD, and the third group consisted of 15 young TDC. A lifestyle checklist, a modified checklist for autism in toddlers (M-CHAT), a behavioral flexibility rating scale-revised (BFRS-R), the Gilliam autism rating scale (GARS-2), and a behavior rating inventory of executive functioning-preschool version (BRIEF-P) were used to compare the three groups. The results showed that executive functions and behavioral flexibility were more impaired in children with ASD than in children with PDNAS and in TDC. Also, we found that there was no significant difference in the severity of autism symptoms between the children with ASD and the children with PDNAS. Early excessive exposure to digital devices may cause autism-like symptoms in children (PDNAS). Children with PDNAS are different from children with ASD in executive functions and behavioral flexibility. Further research is needed in this area

The Effectiveness of Social Skills Training on Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptoms in Adolescents: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Introduction: One of the most important problems in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a deficiency in social skills that appear at an early age and impair or limit daily functioning. The aim of this study was to evaluate social skills training on ASD symptoms in adolescents. Materials and Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest. The statistical population consisted of 60 adolescents with high-functioning ASD in Tehran, Iran. Through purposive sampling, 12 subjects were selected and participated in 10 sessions lasting 90 minutes (two sessions per week). The participants were evaluated using the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS). Results: Social skills training did not have a significant effect on reducing stereotypical behavior (P = 0.11), communication problems (P = 0.26), social interactions (P = 0.08), and symptoms of developmental disorders (P = 0.77). Conclusion: Our findings indicate that social skills training alone has little impact on ASD symptoms in adolescents. Therefore, training that covers other troubled fields in these teenagers is recommended to alleviate the symptoms of this disorder

Psychophysical evidence for impaired Magno, Parvo, and Konio-cellular pathways in dyslexic children

Purpose: Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities affecting millions of people worldwide. Although exact causes of dyslexia are not well-known, a deficit in the magnocellular pathway may play a role. We examined possible deficiency of magnocellular, as compared to parvocellular and koniocellular pathway function by measuring luminance and color perception. Methods: Visual stimuli consisted of a series of natural images, divided into layers of luminance, red-green and blue-yellow, which probed magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular pathways, respectively. Thirteen children with dyslexia and 13 sex- and age- matched controls performed three psychophysical tasks. In the first task, subjects were instructed to match the contrast of luminance (magno) and red-green (parvo) images to that of the blue-yellow (konio) images. In the second task, subjects detected the isoluminant point of red-green images to probe parvocellular pathway. In the third task, temporal processing was assessed by measuring reaction time and percentage of correct responses in an identification task using four categories of images, activating all three pathways. Results: The dyslexic group had significantly elevated luminance and color contrast thresholds and higher isoluminant point ratio in comparison to the control group. Furthermore, they had significantly less correct responses than the control group for the blue-yellow images. Conclusion: We may suggest that dyslexic subjects might suffer from both magnocellular and parvocellular deficits. Moreover, our results show partial impairment of the koniocellular pathway. Thus, dyslexia might be associated with deficits in all three visual pathways

Developing “Family Integrated Treatment” for Autistic Disorders and Comparing its Efficacy on Decreasing Parenting Stress of Parents of Autistic Children with “Little Bird” Method

Introduction: Autism is one of the most famous neuro-developmental disorders and increases parental stresses. On the other hand, decrease of parental stress has positive effect on child response to treatment. So, the main goal of this study was to develop a family education program for parents of children with autism, which is effective on decreasing their parental stress. Materials and Methods: The first part of the study was a qualitative research of three categories of information resulted from deep interviews with 11 specialists, semi-structured interviews with 30 parents and review of 101 articles. The second part was an experimental research on two intervention, and one control groups, with three examination stages: before, after and one-month fallow-up. To fulfill this goal, 42 parents were selected from the parents of autistic children who received services in Tehran Autism Center, Iran, during the study period, and then, were divided randomly to tree groups. The material used for this section of study was Parental Stress Index (PSI). The results were analyzed using covariate analysis and analysis of variance techniques via SPSS20 software. Results: Our family integrated treatment method for autistic disorders was more efficient on decreasing reinforcing (P = 0.032), mood (P = 0.010), acceptability (P = 0.013), and adaptability (P = 0.004), and total score of child stress (P = 0.004). In addition, it showed significant effect on competence (P = 0.002), depression (P = 0.001), social isolation (P = 0.002), attachment (P < 0.001), role restriction (P =0.001), parental health (P = 0.003), and total score of parental stress (P < 0.001), and also on PSI-total score (P < 0.001), in comparison with 2 other groups. Conclusion: In comparison with previous parental training programs like little bird program which mostly focuses on stress of child domain, family integrated treatment method pays attention to special needs of every single family and its comprehensiveness; and is effective on decreasing parental domain of stress as well