The Effectiveness of Combined Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Calcium Supplementation Plus Vitamin D on Reducing the Premenstrual Syndrome

Abstract Background: Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) consists of repetitious physical and psychological symptoms that occurs in luteal phase of menstrual period and will be over when menstrual period starts. The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of calcium therapy plus vitamin D and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on the parameters of PMS symptoms in women suffering from PMS. Materials and Methods: This study has an experimental plan of pretest and post-test of the control group. The statistical society is 250 female staff of Tehran Universities in academic year 2013-2014. Premenstrual syndrome screening tool (PSST) questionnaire was used as an evaluation tool. The collected data were analyzed using the indexes of the descriptive statistics and covariance analysis (p<0.05). Results: The minimum age of the statistical society was 24, 52.5 % of them held a master's degree and 60% were single. Cognitive behavioral therapy method, calcium and vitamin D therapy were significant in improving the parameters of symptoms at p<0.05 level of significance. Conclusion: Combining cognitive behavioral therapy and calcium supplementation and vitamin D is significantly effective in improving components of PMS sympotoms and applying these methods is recommended by the consultants and gynecologists

A Comparison of Coping Styles of Mothers of Exceptional Children with Mothers of Normal Children

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare coping styles of mothers of exceptional children with each other and with mothers of normal children. Materials & Methods: The study was a Causal-Comparative research. Sample size of 120 mothers in four groups of mental retardation, low vision, hearing impairment and normal children randomly clustered chosen in the city of Karaj. In this study coping styles questionnaire (Lazarus and Folkman, 1998) was used. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of variance and pos hoc Tukey test. Results: The results showed that there is significant difference (P<0.05) in applying coping styles of "distancing, accepting responsibility, escape-avoidance and positive reappraisal", between mothers of exceptional children and mothers of normal children. Also, this study showed that there are differences among mothers of exceptional children that these differences are more for mothers of hearing impairment children. Conclusion: Since mothers of exceptional children differ from each other and mothers of normal children in applying coping styles, recommended to liable and professionals are active in this area to educate proper solutions to parents of exceptional children especially mothers to cope with stress. With more education and support, mothers can cope with life stresses more suitable and family will be benefited from higher mental calmness

Comparison of Reading Literacy than Students with Visual Impairment and Normal Students

Objective: If we consider reading, writing and accounting as three substantial skills in primary school, reading will be most important skill of them and therefore, understanding reading processes and its methods is required. The aim of this study was to assay improvement of reading in fourth grade primary school students with visual impairment and comparison with the normal peer students. Materials & Methods: The current research was a Causal-Comparative study and performed by the use of PIRLS (2006) international standardized booklet as instrument. Twenty seven students with fourth grade primary exceptional school in Tehran, Rey and Qom cities were selected by means of non-convenience sampling and compared with the equal students in adjacent schools selected by simple random method. The independent samples t-test method was used in statistical analysis. Results: In the levels of reading literacy (P=0.017) and understanding of literal contents, there was significant difference between students with visual impairment and normal students (P=0.07) whereas in understanding of information contents there was not significant difference (P=0.053). Conclusion: The visual impairment was effective on reading literacy therefore there is necessity to special attention to students with acute visual impairment and reviewing their reading programs. It is recommended that teachers and authorities provide more text in brail for blind children and utilize modern assistive methods to improve their reading literacy