Applicability of the Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitude Questionnaire in Moslem women

There are some valuable questionnaires to assess the body attitude but applicability of those in Moslem women is unknown and the aim of this study was assessment of the validity and reliability of the Iranian-translated versions of the Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) in Iranian women. The BAQ 44 item was administered to 304 healthy non-pregnant Iranian women. A confirmatory factor analysis was carried out. The internal consistency reliability and Inter-correlations of the BAQ subscales and concurrent validity were assessed. The results showed that 9 out of 44 items had insignificant regression weights on the respective factors that further were nominated to deletion. The 6-factor model has an acceptable fit with the data. The internal consistency was .91 for all scale of 35-item BAQ. The coefficient of repeatability (ICC) respectively were .78, .77, .89, .94, .86 and .79 for attractiveness, disparagement, feeling fat, salience of weight/shape, lower body fat and strength and fitness. Results showed that the 6-factor model the 35-item questionnaire is appropriate for evaluating body attitude in Moslem women.     

Superior identification of familiar visual patterns a year after learning

Practice improves visual performance on simple tasks in which stimuli vary along one dimension. Such learning frequently is stimulus-specific and enduring, and has been associated with plasticity in striate cortex. It is unclear if similar lasting effects occur for naturalistic patterns that vary on multiple dimensions. We measured perceptual learning in identification tasks that used faces and textures, stimuli that engage multiple stages in visual processing. Performance improved significantly across 2 consecutive days of practice. More important, the effects of practice were remarkably stable across time: Improvements were maintained approximately 1 year later, and both the relative difficulty of identifying individual stimuli and individual differences in performance were essentially constant across sessions. Finally, the effects of practice were largely stimulus-specific. Our results suggest that the characteristics of perceptual learning are similar across a spectrum of stimulus complexities.     

University Student Depression Inventory: Measurement model and psychometric properties

University Student Depression Inventory (USDI) was developed to assess the symptoms of depression among the university students. Considering the debilitating nature of depression among university students globally, USDI was translated in Persian and validated using university students from Iran. A battery including the Persian version of USDI and scales measuring suicide, depression, and stress was administered to a normative sample of 359 undergraduate students, and an additional clinical sample of 150 students referred to the university's mental health centre. The results supported the factor structure and the psychometric properties of the translated version. Confirmatory factor analysis upheld the previously reported three‐factor first‐order and one‐factor second‐order structure. The internal consistency, test‐retest reliability, and concurrent and discriminant validity of the Persian version were supported. Cut‐off points using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were established to identify students at risk. Gender differences on the symptoms of depression were evident only in the normative sample, where male participants, compared with female students, had higher mean scores in lethargy, cognitive/emotion, and academic motivation subscales. The translated scale can be used with Persian‐speaking students in Iran and the neighbouring countries as well as those settled in the West to identify symptoms of depression for further evaluation and management.     

Insecure Attachment and Subclinical Depression,Anxiety, and Stress: A Three-Dimensional Model of Personality Self-Regulation As a Mediator

Although the effects of insecure attachment on vulnerability, incidence, and developing mental disorders have been confirmed by many studies, the mechanism of this effect is still unknown. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate the mediating and moderating role of the three-dimensional model of personality self-regulation in the relationship between insecure attachment and subclinical depression, anxiety, and stress. Four hundred Iranian students at Shiraz University were recruited and completed the following scales: the Revised Adult Attachment, Depression Anxiety Stress, Integrative Self-Knowledge, Mindful Attention Awareness, Self-Control, and Self-Compassion. Results showed that there was a moderate correlation among all the variables under study in the expected directions. Multiple mediating models analyses indicated that regarding the relationship between insecure attachment and depression, the components of integrative self-knowledge, self-control, and self-compassion functioned as mediators. However, regarding the relationship between insecure attachment and anxiety and stress, the components of integrative self-knowledge, mindfulness, and self-compassion relatively functioned as mediators. Further, our results showed that only mindfulness and self-compassion were identified as moderators in the relationship between insecure attachment and depression. It is concluded that insecure attachment may cause psychological damage due to deficiency in the components of the three-dimensional model of personality self-regulation, and that mindfulness and self-compassion may play a protective role in the relationship between insecure attachment and depression.     

Sexual abuse and HIV-risk behaviour among black and minority ethnic men who have sex with men in the UK

Black and minority ethnic (BME) men who have sex with men (MSM) face a major burden in relation to HIV infection. It was hypothesised that sexual abuse would predict sexual risk-taking, and that this relationship would be mediated by victimisation and maladaptive coping variables. Four hundred and thirty-two BME MSM completed the survey; 54% reported no sexual abuse and 27% reported sexual abuse. Mann–Whitney tests showed that MSM with a history of sexual abuse reported higher frequency of drug use, and of homophobia and racism than those reporting no prior sexual abuse. A structural equation model showed that the experience of sexual abuse was positively associated with sexual risk-taking and that this relationship was mediated by victimisation variables: frequency of racism and frequency of homophobia and by the maladaptive coping variable: frequency of drug use. The findings can inform the design of psycho-sexual and behavioural interventions for BME MSM.     

Bridging the Gap Between Ethical Theory and Practice in Medicine: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study

Science and Engineering Ethics - Physicians try hard to alleviate mental and physical ailments of their patients. Thus, they are heavily burdened by observing ethics and staying well-informed while...     

Language as power in the therapy room: A study of bilingual (Arabic–English) therapists' experiences

The topic of language as power (LaP) in individual therapeutic encounters has thus far been overlooked, and as bilingual therapists have the ability to use more than one language in the therapy room, their experience of LaP is a compelling research area that this paper attempts to explore. This qualitative, inductive, phenomenological study used interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore five bilingual Arabic–English-speaking therapists' experiences of LaP in the therapeutic encounter. The study identifies two overarching themes: (a) the emergence of identity and power from language and (b) comparisons of power in the English and Arabic languages. Within these themes, the study finds that therapists experience LaP through multiple avenues: self-disclosure, intersectionality, being transported to different identities and expressions of power and power of expression in Arabic–English. These multiple avenues illustrate the complexity of LaP in the therapeutic encounter. The study sheds light on an underexplored area in psychotherapy, illuminating an important area for psychotherapists and training institutions to consider when working with clients.     

EEG phase synchronization during semantic unification relates to individual differences in children’s vocabulary skill

As we listen to speech, our ability to understand what was said requires us to retrieve and bind together individual word meanings into a coherent discourse representation. This so‐called semantic unification is a fundamental cognitive skill, and its development relies on the integration of neural activity throughout widely distributed functional brain networks. In this proof‐of‐concept study, we examine, for the first time, how these functional brain networks develop in children. Twenty‐six children (ages 4–17) listened to well‐formed sentences and sentences containing a semantic violation, while EEG was recorded. Children with stronger vocabulary showed N400 effects that were more concentrated to centroparietal electrodes and greater EEG phase synchrony (phase lag index; PLI) between right centroparietal and bilateral frontocentral electrodes in the delta frequency band (1–3 Hz) 1.27–1.53 s after listening to well‐formed sentences compared to sentences containing a semantic violation. These effects related specifically to individual differences in receptive vocabulary, perhaps pointing to greater recruitment of functional brain networks important for top‐down semantic unification with development. Less skilled children showed greater delta phase synchrony for violation sentences 3.41–3.64 s after critical word onset. This later effect was partly driven by individual differences in nonverbal reasoning, perhaps pointing to non‐verbal compensatory processing to extract meaning from speech in children with less developed vocabulary. We suggest that functional brain network communication, as measured by momentary changes in the phase synchrony of EEG oscillations, develops throughout the school years to support language comprehension in different ways depending on children's verbal and nonverbal skill levels.