The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of applied relaxation training on reducing anxiety and perceived stress among pregnant women. A randomized controlled trial with a prospective pretest-posttest experimental design was used. One hundred ten primigravid women (mean age = 23.8 years) in their second trimester (mean of gestational age = 17.8 weeks) were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received routine prenatal care with applied relaxation training, and the control group received only routine prenatal care. State/trait anxiety was measured with the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and perceived stress was measured with the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale. There were significant reductions in state/trait anxiety and perceived stress for the experimental group compared with the control group after the intervention. The findings suggest beneficial effects of relaxation on reducing anxiety and perceived stress in pregnant women. Teaching relaxation techniques could serve as a resource for improving maternal psychological health.

The findings suggest beneficial effects of nurse-led relaxation education sessions during the prenatal period. This intervention could serve as a resource for improving pregnancy outcomes in women with high anxiety.

Background: The present study aimed at assessing the psychometric properties of psychosocial determinants of physical activity-related measures in Iranian adolescent girls.

Physical activity (PA) helps to prevent osteoporosis, but older women are often sedentary. This study used a pre-post randomized controlled design to evaluate a 12-week exercise education intervention program based on the stages of change (SoC) and processes of change from the transtheoretical change model (TTM) to improve adherence with strength and balance training recommendations at levels sufficient to prevent osteoporosis in Iranian women aged 40-65 years. The home-based exercise prescription consisted of strength and balance training that was progressive, individually tailored and included a walking program. Individuals in the training group (n=61) had a positive, significant progression in psychological SoC (P<0.001), whereas no progression in stages occurred in the control group (n=55). After the intervention, the training group demonstrated significant improvements in PA, lower body muscle strength, static and dynamic balance, with no significant changes in the control group. These results support the applicability of the TTM for a PA intervention and indicate that this training program is very effective in improving balance and lower body strength in older women.

BackgroundOral health is a basis for general health and well-being and affects physical and psychological aspects of the human life. The aim of this study was to determine the power of the health belief model in general and the role of perceived severity and its components in particular in predicting tooth brushing behavior among young adolescents.MethodsThis was a cross sectional study of a sample of female students grade four in Rasht (a metropolitan in north Iran) in 2012. A systematic random sampling method was applied to recruit students. They were asked to respond to a designed questionnaire containing items on brushing behavior based on the health belief model. In this study for the first time perceived severity and perceived barriers were divided into two parts, perceived subjective and objective severity and perceived physical and psychological barriers and were treated as independent variables. Logistic regression analysis was performed in order to identify the variables that predict the desirable behavior (brushing twice a day or more).ResultsIn all 265 female students were entered into the study. Of these, only 17.4% reported that they were brushing at least twice a day (desirable behavior). The results obtained from the logistic regression analysis indicated that perceived objective severity (OR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.21- 0.66, P = 0.001) and feeling less perceived psychological barriers (OR = 2.60, 95% CI = 1.50- 4.52, P = 0.001) were the significant predicting factors for brushing twice a day.ConclusionThe findings suggest that perceived objective severity and perceived psychological barriers play important role in adapting a desirable health behavior among young adolescents.

Psychological stress has been found to be associated with a variety of ailments and health outcomes in adolescents. This study investigated the relationships between perceived stress, general self-efficacy and mental health status among Iranian male adolescents recruited from midtown high schools in Tehran who studied in 12th grade (N = 148). Pupils completed three questionnaires for assessing perceived stress (PSS-14; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), general self-efficacy (GSE; Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and psychological well-being (GHQ-28; Goldberg & Hillier, 1979). Statistical analysis revealed that greater stress was associated with lower general self-efficacy and lower mental health status. A significant inverse relationship between self-efficacy and general health was found among these students. Results are discussed in relation to their implications for effective mental health education (e.g., stress management training) for adolescents.

Objective: To describe the status of dental caries in a sample of Iranian adolescents aged 14 to 18 years in Qazvin, and to identify caries-related factors affecting this group. Study design: Qazvin was divided into three zones according to socio-economic status. The sampling procedure used was a stratified cluster sampling technique; incorporating 3 stratified zones, for each of which a cluster of school children were recruited from randomly selected high schools. The adolescents agreed to participate in the study and to complete a questionnaire. Dental caries status was assessed in terms of decayed teeth (DT), filled teeth (FT) and decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT). A multivariate regression analysis was used to determine statistically significant associations between DMFT and other variables. Results: The study sample comprised 380 adolescents, 188 (49.5%) being male. The mean age of the adolescents was 15.42 (SD= 1.1) years, and the mean DMFT was 2.61 (SD=1.89). Boys had significantly higher DMFT scores than girls (P<0.05). The multivariate regression analyses revealed a significant relation between high DMFT scores and such variables as increasing age, male gender, lower levels of parental education, higher family income, lower frequency of tooth brushing and dental flossing, having a history of no visits to the dentist, and bad perception of own oral health. Conclusions: The present study reveals that Iranian adolescents have a poor oral hygiene, as very few subjects brush and floss their teeth on a regular basis. Although the incidence of caries was found to be moderate, it was influenced by demographic factors such as age and gender in addition to socio-behavioral variables such as family income, the level of education attained by parents, the frequency of dental brushing and flossing, and both the frequency and type of visit to a dentist.

A culturally sensitive, reliable and valid instrument is crucial to better understand the self-efficacy of childbirth as a basis for developing effective interventions to increase normal childbirth among Iranian pregnant women.