Iranian Journal of Health Psychology

Introduction: Quality of life (QOL) in cancer patients is more important than only being alive. In all types of the cancers because of disease, course of treatment and also complication of treatments, directly and indirectly patients’ QOL will change. So finding a way to improve QOL of cancer patients is one of the priority of our health system. One effective way is improvement of sense of coherence (SOC) which is one of the component of salthogenic medicine. In this research we want to know how much influence SOC has on QOL in cancer patients, in a systematic review. Methods and material: We aimed to do a systematic review so in our literature search strategy, we searched in some databases, such as pubmed, scopus, cochrane, web of science and Embase. Then appropriate studies in title, inclusion and exclusion criteria, were selected and their mark in Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) criteria. 8 studies remained for us for our study. Then we extract the data and synthesis the results. Results: In this review, in most of the studies there was a strong association between SOC and QOL, but some confounders such as age, stage of cancer,… can increase or decrease the degree of this association. The differences between the kinds of questions in different questionnaires maybe made these differences. Conclusion: Taken together, there is a moderate correlation between SOC and QOL and some another factors can have effect on both of our variables .SOC can change cross sectional, so, we should do more research to find the factors that can improve the SOC in cancer patients.

Objective: Fear of Covid-19, is one of the subjects experienced by the mankind in 2019 for the reason that it threatened the physical health and life of the individuals, increased their stress and caused the incitation of a vast spectrum of psychological problems like anxiety and depression. Present study tries investigating the role of positivism and uncertainty intolerance in fear of Covid-19. Method: The study population included all the boy and girl university students studying in psychology, educational sciences and counseling majors of Payam-e-Noor University, Khuzestan Branch. Among students, 269 students were voluntarily selected through the social network of Whatsapp. The study method is correlational. The data have been gathered by the assistance of positivism, uncertainty intolerance and fear of Covid-19 questionnaires. Use was made of SPSS for analyzing the data. Result: Regression analysis indicated that positivism and uncertainty intolerance are predictors of fear of Covid-19 and that they account for 16% of the variance of fear of Covid-19 (P<0.05). Conclusions:The present study suggests it to the responsible officials that the prerequisite for reducing the thoughts hence the fear of Covid-19 is the shift from negative to positive attitude and that it is necessary to bring about a change from uncertainty intolerance to uncertainty tolerance.

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy on pain coping strategies and pain catastrophizing in patients with pain disorder. The research method was a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and a control group and a two-month follow-up. The statistical population of the study included all women with psychosomatic problems and pain who referred to Manoushan and Behsa counseling centers in Tehran. The sample size included 60 (three groups of 20). The research instruments included the Rosenstile and Keefe (1983) Pain Coping Strategies Questionnaire and the Bishop and Pivik (1995) Pain Catastrophe Scale. the emotion-focused experimental group received 12 training sessions and the cognitive-behavioral experimental group received 10 sessions training, but the control group did not receive any intervention during the study.. The results of mixed variance analysis and Benferroni pairwise comparison test showed that both emotion-focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy have significant impact on the components of pain reinterpretation, pain catastrophizing, behavioral activity and coping efficiency (P <0.05), but they do not have significant effect on the components of return attention, ignoring pain, prayer and hope, and self-talking (P <0.05). The results also showed that both treatments have significant effect on pain catastrophizing (P <0.05). Also, no significant difference was observed between the two experimental groups (P <0.05). Therefore, the results of the present study show that emotion-focused therapy, like cognitive-behavioral therapy, can be used for patients with pain disorders and improve their cognitive factors.

Multiple sclerosis affects the quality of life of patients due to its association with numerous neurological problems; it may lead to job loss and reduced participation in social activities and, in general, have a negative impact on their professional and social life. In the present study, the effectiveness of motivational interview group therapy on pain self-efficacy and resilience of patients with multiple sclerosis was investigated. The present study is quasi-experimental in which 24 patients were selected from the population of patients with multiple sclerosis in Borujen city in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, using the available sampling method. Research tools included pain self-efficacy and resilience questionnaires. Data analysis was performed by repeated variance analysis using SPSS-22 software. The results showed that motivational interview group therapy had a significant effect on increasing pain self-efficacy (Partial ŋ2= 0.24, p = 0.002, F = 6.92). Also, motivational interview group therapy had a significant effect on increasing resilience (Partial ŋ2 = 0.58, p = 0.001, F = 30.06). The present study showed that motivational interview group therapy improves pain self-efficacy and resilience of patients with multiple sclerosis. Accordingly, in the process of motivational interview group therapy, patients learn to become aware of the mental process by teaching behavioral, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and in this way, they improve the resilience and pain self-efficacy.

Objective: Hemodialysis patients suffer many problems including feelings of loneliness, fatigue, and low lifestyle quality. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of online existential consciousness therapy on these patients’ loneliness, fatigue, and lifestyle. Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest and follow-up design with a control group. The research population was all hemodialysis patients who were referred to the dialysis center of Nikan Hospital in Tehran. Using the convenience sampling method, 30 participants were selected as study samples. Research instruments for collecting data were the Rasel’s Loneliness Questionnaire (1978), the Fieck’s Fatigue Impact Questionnaire (1944), and the Corona Virus Lifestyle Scale (Ali Akbari Dehkordi, et al., 2020). For the experimental group, ten 90-minutes sessions were performed through Sky-room. Results: MANCOVA and ANCOVA showed that existential consciousness training reduced the feeling of loneliness in the sub-components of not having a close friend, lack of loneliness, and isolation, but was not effective in the sub-component of sociability. This intervention also reduced the fatigue in the cognitive and social components but did not affect the physical component. It was also effective on the happy lifestyle but did not affect on the healthy lifestyle. Conclusions: Existential consciousness therapy was effective in reducing the loneliness feeling, fatigue impact, and lifestyle changes of hemodialysis patients during home quarantine. Therefore, this method can be used as a new therapeutic approach to reduce the loneliness and fatigue impact caused by hemodialysis and change patients' lifestyles during quarantine in medical centers and psychological services.

Objective: According to the importance of health precautions and preventive behaviors against COVID-19, the present study aimed to compare health-related behaviors in individuals with and without COVID-19. Methods: This study was causal-comparative and descriptive. The sample of the study was 30 persons with a history of COVID-19 infection and 61 normal individuals who were selected in available from men and women in Rasht in 1399. To collect data the Clark and et al compliance behaviors against COVID-19 questionnaire (2020) was used. Results: The results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that there were differences in health-related behaviors among individuals with and without COVID-19. In other words, the average of Perceived Invulnerability scores are higher in individuals with COVID-19 and Health Precautions and Health Importance in them, is less than normal individuals. Conclusions: These findings indicate that there are gaps in health behaviors related to COVID-19 area which awareness in this area can have a positive effect on the quality of health-related behaviors.