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Background: One of the most common anxiety disorders is the social anxiety disorder (SAD), which is characterized by intolerable anxiety and self-consciousness in daily social situations. A large body of study is conducted on the treatment of this disorder, though further studies are required on new psychological therapies.Objectives: The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of compassion focused therapy (CFT) on patients with SAD. Methods: The present randomized controlled trial study, which is along with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with control group, 34 subjects who based on the structured clinical interview for DSM (SCID) had the criteria for social anxiety disorder on the basis of DSM-IV-TR, and had no other severe psychiatric disorders, were assigned completely randomly and equally into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was treated with 12 one-weekly CFT sessions, whereas the control group did not receive any treatment. At the beginning of the research, after 12 weeks and after a follow-up period of 8 weeks, all subjects were evaluated with acceptance and action questionnaire (AAQ-II), mindful attention awareness scale (MAAS), levels of self-criticism scale (LOSC), selfcompassion scale (SCS), World Health Organization quality of life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF), and Liebowitz social anxiety scale (LSAS) instruments. In addition to descriptive statistics, repeated measure analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) was used in order to analyze the findings and using SPSS-21 software all analyzes were conducted. Results:Based on the RM-ANOVA, CFT was significantly more effective than non-treatment in reducing psychological inflexibility, self-criticism, and severity of social anxiety symptoms (P < 0.001) in both post-test and two months' follow-up. Moreover, CFT was able to significantly increase the mindfulness levels, self-compassion, and quality of life in patients with social anxiety (P < 0.01).Conclusions: Compassion-focused interventions apparently play a quite effective role in reducing symptoms and increasing the quality of life of patients with social anxiety disorder.

Depression has an important role in people's lives. Many studies have investigated the prevalence of depressive disorders in Iran during past decades. →What this article adds: This systematic review and meta-analysis revealed the considerable prevalence of major depression disorder among Iranians.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a common problem for women of reproductive age, affecting various aspects of their lives. While various in-person psychotherapeutic interventions, including Mindfulness therapy, have yielded promising results in reducing PMS symptoms, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, psychotherapists are providing their services via online methods. Therefore, the present study is the first one worldwide to examine whether smartphone-based Mindfulness training can reduce symptoms of PMS and improve the quality of life in women with PMS. We recruited 80 Iranian women (aged 25–45) with PMS through online advertising who were randomly allocated into two groups of 40. The intervention group underwent two online introductory group sessions followed by 8 weeks of Mindfulness practice, while the control group received no intervention. Before and after the intervention, participants completed the 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey and the Premenstrual Symptoms Screening (PSST) questionnaires. Data were analyzed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Following the intervention, the mean scores of PMS symptoms were significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group (p &lt; 0.001; η2 = 0.18). Likewise, the quality of life score was significantly higher in the intervention group (p &lt; 0.001; η2 = 0.14). Our results indicated that the smartphone-based Mindfulness training intervention could be an effective treatment modality for women with PMS symptoms, especially during the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has posed limitations for in-person therapies.Clinical Trial Registrationhttps://fa.irct.ir/trial/59924, identifier: IRCT20180607040000N2.