BackgroundOver the past few years, methamphetamine-induced psychosis (MIP) has increased in Iran, accounting for a significant percentage of psychiatry hospital admissions. The present study was conducted with an aim to investigate clinical symptoms, and course and treatment methods of MIP inpatients in Shafa Psychiatry Hospital in northern Iran.MethodsParticipants were 152 MIP inpatients. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) subscales of suspiciousness, unusual thought content; hallucinations and hostility were used to measure psychiatric symptoms. Data regarding suicide and homicide and violence were also obtained through interviews with the inpatients and their family. Based on their lengths of recovery time, the inpatients were categorized into 3 clinical groups. These inpatients received their usual treatments and were monitored for their psychiatric symptoms and clinical course of illness. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics.ResultsThe most frequent psychiatric symptoms were violence (75.6 %), intimate partner violence (61.2 %), delusions of persecution (85.5 %), delusions of reference (38.5 %), delusions of grandiosity (32.9 %), delusions of infidelity (30.2 %), auditory hallucinations (51.3 %), visual hallucinations (18.4 %), suicidal thoughts (14.5 %), homicidal thoughts (3.9 %), suicide attempts (10.5 %) and homicide attempts (0.7 %). Recovery from psychotic symptoms in 31.6 % of the inpatients took more than one month. 46.1% of the inpatients were treated with Risperidone and 37.5 % with Olanzapine. Persecutory delusion and auditory hallucination were the most frequent persistent psychotic symptoms. 20.8 % of the inpatients with duration of psychosis more than one month were treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) along with antipsychotics.ConclusionAll forms of violence are highly frequent in MIP inpatients. Our finding agrees with many other studies suggesting that recovery from MIP can take more than a month. Initial promising findings were found regarding the efficacy of Electroconvulsive therapy in MIP patients.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a neglected public health issue in Iran. This study was conducted among married women residing in urban Rasht (northern Iran), to estimate the prevalence and frequency of different forms of IPV from husband and their associations with socio-demographic factors. We carried out a population-based cross-sectional survey with cluster sampling design from February to October 2015. The samples consisted of married women aged ≥ 18 years with total household in Rasht city (north Iran) as the sample frame. We administered the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2) to estimate prevalence of past-year IPV. Of 2091 women, 57.1% had suffered psychological aggression, 27.6% physical abuse, 26.6% sexual abuse, and 6.9% injury. A significant association with IPV was found for women with, age ≤ 40 years, unemployed, low education, husband's addiction and rented-householders. Women who experienced physical abuse, had less age at marriage than women without violence. Also women with sexual coercion had less length of marriage than other non-abused women. On logistic regression, the strongest predictor of psychological, physical and sexual abuse was unemployment of spouse, whereas for injury it was low educational level (<12 years) of women. Our findings suggest that risk of IPV is high in our population. There is an obvious need of preventive and treatment activities. Our findings point at that various forms of abuse are different from each other in terms of differing characteristics of the perpetrators and it might be that also different strategies are needed to reduce and prevent these violence. Confirmation by further research is needed.

The effects of different types of intimate partner violence (IPV) on mental health are understudied. The aim of this study was to analyse the association between women's mental health and physical, psychological and sexual IPV. We invited subjects of a population-based survey conducted in 2015 in Rasht, Iran, on IPV against women to complete the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). The present research study is a secondary study based on these data and archival data from the 2015 study. For analysis, multivariate analysis of covariance was used. Additionally, predictors of IPV were evaluated using linear regression. A total of 2091 married women were surveyed. The participants were divided into abused women (n = 512, 24.5%) and non-abused women (n = 1579, 75.5%). The pattern of IPV among our patients showed more instances of psychological aggression than physical assault, sexual coercion or injury. Our results show that the non-psychotic psychiatric disorders of the victims were significantly impaired in all aspects, including somatic symptoms, anxiety/insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression. Except social dysfunction, the psychological and sexual abuse were significant predictors of other aspects of mental health. Our findings suggest that risk of IPV is high in this population. They also indicate that various forms of abuse are different from each other in terms of predicting a victim's mental health. Different strategies may be required to reduce and prevent this violence. Additional research is needed to confirm and expand upon our findings.

Background Midwives' stress can have negative consequences on their emotional state, burnout, and poor quality of midwifery care. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of an adapted mindfulness-based stress management program on perceived stress and the emotional regulation of midwives. Methods The study was a parallel randomized clinical trial on the midwives working in general hospitals of Zanjan, Iran. In this study, 121 midwives registered to participate based on the census sampling method were screened using a cut point of ≥ 28 in the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). From the initial sample, 42 subjects had inclusion criteria assigned to two groups of control (n = 21) and intervention (n = 21) using online random allocation. The intervention group received an 8-week adapted mindfulness-based stress management program. This program emanates from the Kabat-Zinn's MBSR program, which has been adjusted according to the Iranian culture. The ANCOVA and repeated measure analysis of variance test were used to compare groups over time. Results The results showed that the group intervention effectively affected perceived stress (P = 0.001) and difficulty in emotion regulation during the post-intervention period (P = 0.001). Moreover, the interventions were effective in emotion regulation (P = 0.003), but it was not effective on perceived stress (P = 0.125) at the 3-month follow-up. Conclusions This adapted mindfulness-based program successfully reduced stress and increased emotion regulation strategies in midwives; however, the long-term outcomes of this treatment program need further consideration.

The aim of this study was to compare olfactory threshold, smell identification, intensity and pleasantness ratings between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls, and (2) to evaluate correlations between ratings of olfactory probes and illness characteristics. Thirty one patients with schizophrenia and 31 control subjects were assessed with the olfactory n-butanol threshold test, the Iran smell identification test (Ir-SIT), and the suprathreshold amyl acetate odor intensity and odor pleasantness rating test. All olfactory tasks were performed unirhinally.Patients with schizophrenia showed disrupted olfaction in all four measures. Longer duration of schizophrenia was associated with a larger impairment of olfactory threshold or microsmic range on the Ir-SIT (P = 0.04, P = 0.05, respectively). In patients with schizophrenia, female subjects’ ratings of pleasantness followed the same trend as control subjects, whereas male patients’ ratings showed an opposite trend. Patients exhibiting high positive score on the positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) performed better on the olfactory threshold test (r = 0.37, P = 0.04). The higher odor pleasantness ratings of patients were associated with presence of positive symptoms.The results suggest that both male and female patients with schizophrenia had difficulties on the olfactory threshold and smell identification tests, but appraisal of odor pleasantness was more disrupted in male patients.