A study on the pattern of drug abuse and demographic characteristics of addicts referred to addiction treatment centers of Kermanshah City, Iran, in 2016

BACKGROUND: The problems of drugs and addiction and the consequences of drug into abuse are considered as a phenomenon that affects different aspects of human life and is one of the main problems of modern age. The main goal of performing this investigation was identifying general demographic factors which affect the process of addiction in order to make available the facility of diagnosis and practice of therapeutic programs.METHODS: In this cross-sectional and descriptive study, a number of 500 addicts in Kermanshah, Iran, were selected using sampling method. Data were analyzed using SPSS software and descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage frequency, cumulative frequency, and average).RESULTS: The mean age of the subjects in this study was 36.6 + 8.80 years. Most addicts were in the age category of 31 to 40 years old. 62.8% of them began drug use for the first time in the age range of 10 to 20 years. 47% had primary education and 68.4% were unemployed and had no specific source of income. The top cause of drug use was reported as entertainment and enjoyment (47.6%) and the other cause was curiosity (26.4%). The most common cause of drug cessation was being tired of drug use.CONCLUSION: With regard to the fact that most addicts are unemployed with no source of income, thus it seems that the authorities have to assess effective treatments and find ways to create youth employment and also healthy entertainment activities and source of income on which one can rely

Effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral theraphy in the treatment of Iranian male drug addicts at a state rehabilitation center

Introduction: The present study aimed at examining the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) group intervention on measures of self-efficacy and level of relapse for abstinence among Iranian male drug addicts. Methods: An experimental research design was adopted in the current study in which the participants consisted of 75 male drug addicts who were consecutively admitted as outpatients at a state rehabilitation center. They were randomly allocated to experimental (N=37) and control (N=38) groups. They completed the Iranian version of Drug Taking Confidence Questionnaire (DTCQ-IV) and took urine test as pre-test and post-test. The CBT group intervention was conducted at 12 sessions, one session per week. It was hypothesized that there were significant differences between the experimental and control groups regarding self-efficacy and level of relapse. Result: The results of ANCOVA showed there were significant differences in pleasant emotion and testing control between the two groups on measures of self-efficacy. The results of McNemar test indicated level of relapse in the experimental group significantly declined from pre-test to post-test. Furthermore, using Chi-square analysis, a significant difference (with a moderate effect size) was found in the levels of relapse. Conclusion: The present study provides strong support for CBT group intervention as an effective treatment for Iranian male drug addicts. Therefore, CBT group intervention can be considered as a practical approach in the treatment of people with SUDs

Pharmacist-Led Medication Review: Supports for New Role of Pharmacists

In recent decades, by increasing complexity of drug therapy, pharmacists considered as health- care members who can help optimizing drug therapy. We know that medicines do not have the anticipated effects all the times and a vast variability may exist in their behaviors in the body. So, it is very crucial to individualize treatment for every single patient. Nowadays, optimizing drug therapy in patients needs a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to patients care and treatment. Specifically when drug therapy is considered for a condition, pharmacists can enroll as a valuable professional to help for modification of therapy along with other clinicians. Abundant number of studies and reports exist in the literatures which address usefulness of pharmacist engagement in patient care. In this review we have presented some valuable evidences supporting pharmacist role in different clinical settings

Relationship between general health with happiness, inferiority feeling and marital conflict in Borujerd city infertile women

AbstractBackground and aim:Nowadays, infertility and attitudes toward it, cause issues like depression, helplessness and anxiety. The present studyaimed to investigate the relationship between general health with happiness, inferiority feeling, and marital conflict ininfertile women.Methods and Materials:In this cross-sectional analytical study, 100 infertile women selected by convenience sampling. General HealthQuestionnaire (GHQ), the oxford happiness scale, inferiority feeling and Kansas Marital Conflict Scale (KMCS) wereused as data gathering tools. The Validity of the questionnaires were determined by the content and face validity. Thereliability of the questionnaires was determined using the internal consistency method. The calculated Cronbach’s alphafor general health questionnaire, happiness, inferiority feeling and the marital conflicts scale were 88%, 93%, 76%, and95% respectively. Data was analyzed using SPSS-16 software by a Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regressionResults:100 infertile women 18 - 43 years old with an average age of 29.3 were studied. 55% of women had moderate levels ofeconomic conditions and only 6% of them were referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist. The general health of thewomen with a minimum of 32 and maximum of 87 and a mean (56/14) was at moderate level. The results showed thatthere were significant relationship between general health, happiness and inferiority feeling (p <0.01), while there wasno significant relationship between marital conflict and general health. Regression analysis showed that happiness andinferiority feeling with respect to the beta coefficient (-0.56, 0.21) can vary significantly predict their general health.Conclusion:General health of infertile women could be affected by the happiness and inferiority feeling. According to the results, itseems that professional assistance from psychologists and clinical psychiatrists is useful in helping infertile patients tocope better with problems caused by infertility.Keywords:Health; Happiness; Inferiority Feeling; Marital Conflict; Infertilit

The Efficacy of Emotion Regulation Skills in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Reduction of Psychopathological Symptoms, Emotion Regulation Problems and Improvement in Quality of Life: a case series

Background and Purpose: Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) is one of the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapies which address patients’ problem by improving four emotion regulation skills (i.e. mindfulness, allowing or acceptance, distance, and reappraisal). ERT could be applied for disorders with strong emotional element. Therefore, this study aims to determine the efficacy of emotion regulation skills on reduction of psychopathological symptoms, difficulty of emotion regulation and improvement of quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Method: In an experimental single-case design of baseline type, 5 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) were included in the therapy process after they satisfied necessary condition. The patients had 9 sessions therapy (i.e. 90 minutes). In order to evaluate efficacy of the therapy, the measures of Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome Quality Of Life (IBS-QOL34) were used. To analyze the collected data, certain diagrams, reliable change index, improvement percentage, and corrected size effect (i.e. Hedges' g) were used. Findings: The emotion regulation therapy reduced the psychopathological symptoms, difficulty of emotion regulation and increase of quality of life in patients with IBS. Total percentages of improvement of anxiety, depression, difficulty of emotion regulation and quality of life were 32.25, 34.68, 40.21 and 58.44 percent respectively. Conclusion: The ERT reduced psychopathological symptoms and difficulty of emotion regulation and improved quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome significantly. Consequently, therapists seem to be able to use the skills of this treatment to reduce the psychological problems of these patients

Identification of drug-related problems followed by clinical pharmacist interventions in an outpatient pharmacotherapy clinic

What is known and objective: Pharmacotherapy is an essential strategy for the treatment of many medical conditions especially chronic disease and often involves multiple medications being used simultaneously. Increasing the use of medications may pose some challenges to safe and effective drug therapy and if not identified and prevented by the pharmacists eventually can lead to drug-related problems (DRPs). The present study aimed to examine the incidence of DRPs in Iranian patients and to evaluate patients’ adherence to the clinical pharmacist interventions as well as the physicians’ acceptance of these recommendations. Methods: This study was conducted in a university-affiliated outpatient pharmacotherapy clinic over a 22-month period. Patients aged 18 years and older with at least one chronic disease receiving at least four medications were included in the study. The patients were interviewed by a clinical pharmacist for comprehensive medication review. DRPs were identified using the DOCUMENT classification system. Recommendations were provided by the clinical pharmacist including interventions involving patient and/or physician to resolve DRPs. The patients were followed up after 2 weeks to evaluate their compliance and physician acceptance of clinical pharmacist recommendations. Results and discussion: Two hundred patients were included in this study. Overall, 875 DRPs were identified with an average of 4.37 per patient. The most prevalent DRPs were related to patient education or information (22.8%), undertreated indications (17.4%) and patient compliance (17.2%). The most common drugs associated with DRPs were alimentary and metabolism (22.2% of DRPs) followed by the cardiovascular system (19.2%) and nervous system (9.6%) medications. The DRP incidence correlated with gender only and was higher in females (p = 0.019). The clinical pharmacist provided 912 interventions with an average of 4.56 and 1.04 interventions per patient and per DRPs respectively. Patient education (41.3%), medication initiation or discontinuation (24.5%), and non-pharmacological interventions (12.9%) were the most common clinical pharmacist interventions. Out of 912 interventions, 665 were followed up, out of which 427 were patient dependent and 228 involved physicians. The patient’s compliance with clinical pharmacist recommendations was 81.2%. The physician acceptance rate of the recommendations was 44.1%. What is new and conclusion: The study shows that especially designed services such as pharmacotherapy clinics running by clinical pharmacists are necessary to detect and resolve DRPs in an effective way. The high compliance rate of the patients indicates patients’ confidence in the clinical pharmacist services provided in the pharmacotherapy clinic. The low acceptance rate of the physicians highlights the need to improve interprofessional collaboration between clinical pharmacists and physicians in an outpatient setting.</p

Keeping Things Positive: Affect as a Mediator between Physical Activity and Psychological Functioning

Higher physical activity is generally associated with more favorable psychological functioning. However, the role of positive and negative affect in such associations is unclear. Accordingly, this cross-sectional study explored whether affect mediated the relationship of physical activity with psychological well-being (PWB) and psychological dysfunctioning (PD). Young Iranian adults (N = 200) completed self-rating questionnaires covering physical activity, positive and negative affect, and proxies of PWB and PD. Regression analyses indicated that higher physical activity levels and higher positive and lower negative affect predicted proxies of PWB. The same (albeit in the opposite direction) applied to proxies of PD. Structural equation modeling indicated that positive and negative affect mediated the relationship between physical activity and PWB/PD. Accordingly, change in affect might be an important mechanism behind the association of physical activity and PWB/PD. Future research should further explore this across target populations and cultural contexts. Longitudinal and/or experimental studies are needed to disentangle causality