No abstract

Background: Stress is an important part of a college student's life. Psycho-technology has greatly helped students cope more effectively with stress. Objectives:The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of three methods of intervention for stress management in students based on mindfulness-based stress reduction, including blended therapy, smartphone mobile application, and face-toface therapy. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was designed with pretests, posttests, and follow-ups for a month on randomly selected students. The first group was treated by the Aramgar application only, the second group by both the face-to-face therapy and Aramgar application, and the third group by the face-to-face therapy only. The DASS-21 was utilized for both pretest and posttest administration. The ANOVA and post hoc tests were applied to analyze the data. Results:The mean age of the participants was 24.29 ± 3.21 years. There was a significant difference in the mean score reduction of depression, stress, and anxiety between the three groups (P < 0.001). The post hoc test showed that the blended therapy group had the greatest mean score reduction on stress, depression, and anxiety among the three groups. Conclusions:The blended approach could improve the mental health of students more than the two other approaches. Therefore, the use of mobile platforms of new technologies is highly suggested along with face-to-face interventions in clinics to support people within their daily routine.

Background:Studying medicine is perceived to be stressful, and a high level of stress may have a negative effect on cognitive functioning and mental health of the students.Objectives:In this study, we assessed perceived stress and its severity, sources and determinants.Patients and Methods:In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the perceived stress and its severity, sources and demographic variables in 341 (136 males, 205 females) randomly selected medical students of Tehran university of medical sciences, Iran, in October 2013. A self-administered valid and reliable questionnaire with a possible range of scores from 0 to 56 was used to collect the data. Stress sources were determined using logistic regression analysis.Results:The overall perceived stress mean was 32.02 (SD = 5.08). Eighty-three percent of the medical students perceived stress. Students in clinical phase perceived more stress than basic sciences ones [OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.809 - 4.032]. Logistic regression analysis showed demographic (including gender and residential status), psychosocial and academic factors and the phase of study as sources of stress.Conclusions:The results of this study show that most of the medical students declared perceived stress. So, a change in medical education environment and empowering students to effectively cope with the perceived stress sources and their families to support their children is needed.

Functional mobile applications are regarded as one of the brand-new approaches to psychological interventions in different areas, including stress. The study aims to analyze a mobile application for Persian users on perceived stress and improve mindful skills. This study was a one-group pretest-posttest design with a quasi-experimental research design. Three instruments were used in this study: the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). Eighty-five students participated in an 8-week mindfulness mobile app (Aramgar) for at least 10 minutes per day  intervention. They responded to validated outcome measures of stress and mindfulness at baseline after the 8-week continued access period. The mobile application, Aramgar, was designed based on Mindfulness-based stress reduction. Paired t-tests showed significant differences in general perceived stress (P = 0.03) and total score of mindfulness (P = 0.002) before and after Aramgar. The results of analyzing the quality of Aramgar in terms of engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality showed that specialists assessed the quality of the application appropriately. Using functional mobile apps provides ease of use for mental health services. Therefore, to strengthen and develop the mentioned services, it is recommended that the necessary information technology infrastructures be provided and the existing limitations for designing and running mental health mobile apps be removed.

Introduction: The notion of electronic mental health care is suggested in today's world. With the aid of this care, people's talents are no longer limited by time or location, and those in need of mental health care can get these services by downloading and installing software on their mobile devices. The Cognogene application software has been created to provide electronic mental health services on the smartphone platform. This study aimed to measure the impact of the mobile app "Cognogene" on university students' communication skills. Method : The statistical population of this study included 104 students studying at Tehran University in the winter semester (2021 -2022). They were randomly divided into two 54 -member groups (experimental and control). The experimental group received electronic psychological education (consisting of short video clips, daily homework, motivational letters, etc.) in 21 sessions, while the control group did not. To collect data, Queen Dom's communication skills questionnaire was used in two stages: pre -test and post -test. The data were analyzed using the one -way analysis of variance. Results: Results showed that the intervention made a significant difference in the mean score of all components of the study of communication skills except the components of "receiving and sending messages" and "emotional control". Conclusion : This finding suggests that training through the Cognogene application can be used as a complement to other training methods to improve communication skills.

Background and purpose: There is concern that students may have an unhealthy lifestyle as a result of changes that occurred during corona conditions, so this study aimed to determine the status of the lifestyle and its relationship with the demographic characteristics of postgraduate students during the corona span.  Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2020. The link to the online Health-Promoting Lifestyle Questionnaire Profile2 was sent to conduct the research. To examine the relationships between the mean scores of health-promoting lifestyle and different variables, an independent samples t-test was applied in the case of dichotomous demographic variables (gender, education level, and income-generating activity), while one-way analysis of variance test was used to evaluate the multilevel demographic variables (marital status, place of residence, and faculty). The Pearson correlation coefficient was also used for testing age.  Results: The sample 240, (75.4%) were female and 145 of them, (60.4%) were single. The mean age of them was 32.21±7.45.45 years old. The lifestyle total score was 138.28± 21.18 at the average level. The highest score was related to spiritual growth (26.93±5.01), whereas the lowest score was reported on physical activity (16.92±5.17). The difference between the mean of health-promoting lifestyle was not significant in terms of demographic variables.According to the results, a statistically significant difference was observed between male and female students in the field of nutrition. Also, students were significantly different in the nutrition domain regarding students’ residence (p-value <0.05). Spiritual growth was significantly different among students in terms of marital status (p-value <0.05). Conclusion: Although the mean score of health-promoting lifestyle was not different from other studies, further studies are proposed to plan health interventions in accordance with epidemic conditions for students.

Background: Medical students make extensive use of virtual social networks, especially in the era of the coronavirus pandemic, so that their health-promoting behaviors may be adversely affected. Objective: This study aimed to determine the relationship between the use of virtual social networks and a health-promoting lifestyle among postgraduate medical students. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among post-graduate students studying at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2020. A total of 240 students were included using quota sampling method. Data were collected via valid and reliable questionnaires consisting of socio-demographic information, health-promoting lifestyle Profile-II, and virtual social networks utilization. The spearman test was employed to evaluate the association between virtual social networks and lifestyle. Results: The mean age of participants was 32.21±7.45 and 75.4% were female. The mean score of lifestyle was 138.28±21.18, while the mean score of virtual social networks utilization was (64.55±11.40). There was a statistically significant correlation between utilization of virtual social networks and total score of lifestyle (r=-0.189, P=0.003), as well as physical activity (r=-0.232, P=0.001), nutrition (r=-0.179, P=0.005), and self-actualization (r=-0.154 , P=0.017) of health promoting lifestyle. Linear regression model showed that utilization of internet and social networks (B=-0.37, P=0.02), utilization in the time between 12 pm and 8 am (B=-14.3, P=0.011) were independently associated with Health Promoting Lifestyle score. Conclusion: This study showed that more than half of students had a healthy lifestyle (55%). The average score of virtual social networks used by students was high. Utilization of internet and the time of utilization were independent predictors of Health Promoting Lifestyle score.