Relationship between religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth in patients with cancer in southeast of Iran

Information about religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth is limited in Iranian cancer patients. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth among cancer patients in Iran. This correlational study included a convenience sample of 200 eligible cancer patients who were hospitalized in the oncology wards and outpatient clinics. Using Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) and Religious Beliefs Scale, data were collected. Findings showed that, the total mean score of PTG was 93.81 (SD?=?15.25). Among the categories, the lowest score belonged to “appreciation of life” component (7.67±1.99), and the highest score belonged to “spiritual change” component (67.49 ± 17.78). The mean score of Religious Beliefs Scale was 67.20 (12.35). Post-traumatic growth positively correlated with religious beliefs (r?=?.345; p?=?.001). The results suggest that, information about religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth should be included in the continuous and in-service education of cancer patients and nurses who work with them.     

The Immigration Experience of Iranian Baha’is in Saskatchewan: The Reconstruction of Their Existence, Faith, and Religious Experience

For approximately 150 years, Baha’is in Iran have been persecuted on the basis of their religion. Limitations to aspects of their lives have compelled them to face “civic death” or migrate to other countries. This qualitative pilot study explored the experience of forced migration and how religion attenuates the disruption to the lives of Iranian Baha’is. Adaptive strategies that four participants utilised to re-establish continuity were examined. Participants who were satisfied with their lives developed a way to allow parallel cultural traditions (Iranian and Canadian) to co-exist; those who could not integrate found it difficult to maintain a balance between these traditions.     

Between the frontier and the network: Notes for a metapsychology of freedom2

The author examines the paradigm of the frontier and encounters the establishment of the paradigm of the network, a tendency that currently runs through diverse fields of thought. The network is not proposed as a globalising structure that would neutralise what is different, but as integration based on preservation of what is plural and its transformations. The author moves between these two paradigms in psychoanalytic metapsychology and clinical practice. The concept of frontier is intrinsic to the entire theory: repression, which separates the unconscious from the preconscious, the barrier against stimuli, the delimitation of spaces and agencies. But psychoanalysis is also a precursor of the paradigm of the network, with its concepts of unconscious, free association and evenly suspended attention. She points out that it is psychoanalysis that, in the area of scientific thought, subverts the radical split between subjects and their objects of observation, through the concepts of transference and countertransference, thus inaugurating a revolutionary theory of knowledge. This perspective can later be seen as a forerunner of changes in other disciplines. This text legitimises the contribution of psychoanalysis to thinking and knowledge, as well as the potential of a therapeutic method that provides the tools for crossing frontiers, unknotting and weaving networks, operating in the face of risks of pathological consolidations, thus holding to its unavoidable commitment to freedom.     

Perceptual stability--going with the flow

Historically, inflow and outflow hypotheses have been formulated as the primary explanations for perceptual stability. Central to these hypotheses is the postulation that, following an intended eye movement, knowledge of eye position cancels the consequences of the retinal image motion. Here, we reconsider the evidence for the extra-retinal signal and discuss whether this cancellation approach is compatible with the available empirical evidence. In particular, we propose that visual-oculomotor processing is a distributed process and that population-coding models of sensorimotor transformations are critical elements that need to be incorporated in any comprehensive explanation of spatial constancy.     

Circadian rhythm sleep disorders as a possible side effect of fluvoxamine

Sleep problems, day somnolence, and fatigue as a result of psychotropic drugs are very common. Psychiatrists usually consider these effects a result of insomnia and treat them by prescribing sleeping pills or other benzodiazepine agents. We describe here 10 cases of circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD)--and not merely insomnia--as a possible side effect of fluvoxamine (FVA). Two other serotonin reuptake inhibitors, fluoxetine and clomipramine, did not induce CRSD in any of these 10 patients. We speculate that FVA-induced CRSD is caused by the effect of FVA on serotonin and melatonin levels in the central nervous system. CRSD as a side effect of FVA can be treated by replacing the suspected FVA or adding melatonin to a beneficial FVA treatment. Thus, it is important to be aware of possible iatrogenic CRSD in order to treat appropriately. Prospective studies are needed to confirm our observation and to study the influence of other psychotropic drugs on sleep-wake schedule.     

Plagiarism,Fake Peer-Review,and Duplication: Predominant Reasons Underlying Retractions of Iran-Affiliated Scientific Papers

Science and Engineering Ethics - Retractions of scientific papers published by some Iran-affiliated scientists in the preceding decade have attracted much attention and publicity; however, the...     

The effect of central and peripheral field stimulation on the rise time and gain of human optokinetic nystagmus

We wished to examine the spatial (gain) and temporal (rise time) properties of human optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) as a function of stimulus velocity and field location. Stimuli were either M-scaled random dots or vertical stripes that moved at velocities between 20-80 deg s(-1). Three field conditions were examined: full field; a 20 deg central field; and a 12.5 deg central-field mask. OKN gain was found to be significantly affected by stimulus velocity and stimulus location, with the higher stimulus velocities and the 12.5 deg central-field mask giving lower gains. Steady-state gains for all three field conditions were not found to be affected by prior adaptation to stationary or moving stimuli. The 63% rise time was found to be significantly affected by the stimulus velocity, whereas this was not the case for the 90% rise time. Neither rise time was found to be significantly affected by the field location. These results indicate that, although the effectiveness (gain) of peripheral retina is lower than that of the central retina during optokinetic stimulation, the peripheral retina has access to common mechanisms responsible for the fast component of OKN.     

The stigma of seeking help for mental health issues: mediating roles of support and coping and the moderating role of symptom profile

A key factor to the prevalence of mental illness might be the disinclination to seek help, perhaps owing to the stigma of mental illness. In two studies, the contribution of severity of depressive symptoms, social support, and unsupport, coping strategies, and salience of psychological versus biological features of depression in relation to perceived self‐ and other‐stigma of help‐seeking for mental health issues were examined. Participants were first year students experiencing a transitional stressor, namely entry to university. Together, the findings point to the contribution of social support and unsupportive interactions, and coping methods to the prediction of perceived stigma of seeking help, but that the framing of mental illness can limit or strengthen these relations.