Background and Objective: Anxiety disorders are usually accompanied with sleep disorders. Since limited studies have focused on the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on anxiety-related problems such as sleep disorders, the current research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention on sleep problems. Materials and Methods: This study was a clinical trial with control and treatment groups. The sample consisted of 24 university students diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and Pitts-burgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used to assess the dependent variables. There were measurements during pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages. Results: The treatment could significantly improve the anxiety and sleeping problems in patients with social anxiety. Assessing the aspects of sleep quality showed that the intervention could improve the subjective aspects, latency, dis-turbance, and daily dysfunctions of sleep effectively; however, there was no significant effect on the duration of sleep, taking sleep medications, or sleep efficiency. Conclusion: Mindfulness treatment could be used for improving sleep quality in patients with social anxiety. This treatment could also improve the aspects of sleep quality which are related to sleep threshold.

Objective Many adolescents suffer from depressive and anxiety disorders simultaneously and current treatment methods do not put enough emphasis on comorbidity of these disorders. The unified protocol for treating emotional disorders in adolescents is a transdiagnostic therapy which targets mutual fundamental factors. Therefore, the current study aims to compare the effectiveness of the unified protocol alone with the unified protocol combined with mindfulness as an additional treatment in adolescents suffering from emotional disorders. Method A quasi-experimental study was conducted with adolescents. The participants had been diagnosed with emotional disorders and were divided into a control group (15 participants) and an experimental group (16 participants). Both groups were offered 14 sessions of therapy. They were assessed at pre-test, post-test, and two-month follow-up. Scales used in the study included the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), and the Youth Anxiety Measure for DSM-5 (YAM-5). Results The results showed that both of the treatment methods effectively reduced adolescents’ emotional problems, but improvements were more significant in the group administered the additional mindfulness program. Among the variables assessed, non-phobic anxiety disorders and depression improved more than specific phobia and behavioral problems. Between-subjects (Group) partial etas for non-phobic anxiety, depression, specific phobia, and behavioral problems were 0.67, 0.50, 0.23, and 0.16, respectively. Conclusion According to the findings of this study, additional treatment methods such as mindfulness could increase the effectiveness of the unified transdiagnostic protocol for adolescents (UP-A). The therapeutic implications are discussed.

Background and Objectives: The stress related to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can be a risk factor for other psychological disorders in society. The present study aims to investigate the role of spiritual capital and mindfulness in predicting COVID-19-related stress in college students. Methods: This is a descriptive-correlational study. The study population consist of all male and female students of Farhangian University in Birjand, Iran during 2021-2022. Of these, 242 eligible students were selected using a web-based non-probabilistic sampling method. They completed the Spiritual Capital Scale of Golparvar et al. (2015), the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire of Chadwick et al. (2008), and the Corona Stress Scale of Salimi (2015). For data analysis, Pearson’s correlation test and multiple regression analysis were used in SPSS software, version 22. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: The relationship between spiritual capital and COVID-19-related stress (r=-0.585, P<0.01), and between mindfulness and COVID-19-related stress (r=-0.4569, P<0.01) was negative and significant. The spiritual capital explained 34.2% of the variance and the mindfulness explained 19.9% of the variance in COVID-19-related stress. Conclusion: Spiritual capital and mindfulness can predict the COVID-19-related stress among college students. This indicates the need for planning to improve individual, social, and spiritual abilities of students during the pandemic.