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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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As Nuclear Sanctions Loom, ‘Normal Life’ Is Elusive for Iranians

By Thomas Erdbrink, NY Times, May 10, 2018

TEHRAN--It was a day like any other. The evening rush hour heralded the weekend, which in Iran starts on Thursday. People crowded the sidewalks of a West Tehran square, making their way home or to restaurants.

A young street musician wearing a baseball cap and sitting in a wheelchair sang “Someone Like You” by Adele. His sister played keyboard.

“I don’t understand the words, but it’s beautiful,” one passer-by told a friend. A man walked past with fresh bread. Two teenagers sitting beneath an underpass smoked and giggled.

It was easy to forget that the lives of those making their way home here had been changed with the stroke of a pen, thousands of miles away, this week when President Trump formally withdrew from the nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers.

Life can be like a roller coaster in Iran. Ordinary people can do little more than hang on through the twists and turns as their own leaders, and sometimes foreign ones, chart a course. Rarely are they in control.

“No one ever listens to us,” said Ali Akbari, a 33-year-old tech student with a hipster beard. “That’s just the way it is. We have to go with the flow.”

Iranians were thrown into another corkscrew when Mr. Trump pulled out of the agreement, which many here had hoped would give them peace of mind and prosperity. Now they face new rounds of sanctions, along with an economy already riddled with corruption and mismanagement.

Normal people tried to go on with their lives. Those who had taken hope from the more open atmosphere the nuclear agreement brought--at least for a time--were licking their wounds. Iranians who took part in the recent protests that swept the country and businessmen alike struggled to adjust to the new reality.

In the desert town of Kashan, a lawyer and human rights activist, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was in court defending a woman who had protested against the compulsory Islamic head scarf. Ms. Sotoudeh, who herself has been in jail numerous times, said the nuclear agreement had provided breathing space for those critical of the government.

“This move by Trump has empowered hard-liners, and they will start cracking down internally,” she said over the phone. “We can anticipate bad days for civil and human rights activists.”

In Tehran, Hamidreza Faraji, a businessman, also pointed a finger at hard-liners.

Mr. Faraji, 35, opened a perfume shop after the nuclear agreement was reached in 2015. Business growth seemed to be on the horizon. Iran’s leaders promised a bonanza with the arrival of foreign investors.

“I thought there would be more money around, and people would buy more perfume,” Mr. Faraji said.

He sat in his store for many fruitless afternoons, giving high discounts to the few customers who came. Then last week he closed up shop, to prevent further losses.

“This deal was crippled by hard-liners in the U.S. and in Iran,” Mr. Faraji said. “Now we are witnessing its last breaths.”

Still, life went on this week in Tehran, as it did during the 1979 Islamic revolution, the eight years of war with Iraq, the recent anti-government protests and the years of sanctions.

Mr. Akbari, the student, had not even bothered to watch the news when Mr. Trump made his announcement. He woke up on Wednesday, made his way to university and sat down in class. Another student told him that the American president had given a big speech and that sanctions would return.

“My first reaction,” he said, was “prices will go up again--more misery.”

His white earbuds dangled on his shoulders, blasting hip-hop. “I love hip-hop,” Mr. Akbari said. “It’s the voice of the frustrated.”

In Tehran, the metro station filled up and drained empty of passengers. The pink bus driving up from Shahid Beheshti Street stopped at Sadeghiyeh Square. A doctor carrying two shopping bags asked me if I had a job for her daughter.

“She studied industrial management and is really smart,” said the doctor, Marzieh Mirzaei. “But the only offer she got was to work in a pharmacy for one million tomans a month. Do you know how much that is in dollars?”

“Around $150,” I answered.

“Well, would you work for that?” she asked.

No, I said.

Another man, who gave his name only as Amir, did not want to talk about Mr. Trump’s decision at first. A 36-year-old father of two boys, he was sitting in a tiny booth in the Golriz shopping center, selling water pipes and Zippo lighters.

“How miserable have we become that this Trump should play a role in our lives,” Amir said. “How miserable are we that our leaders constantly want to pick fights with everybody.”

He insisted that I write down the following: “I want to live a normal life. Amir from Iran wants a normal life.”

On the streets, many blamed both Mr. Trump and their own leaders for their misery, although it was clear who ultimately had pulled the plug on the deal.

“Trump made us miserable,” said Fatemeh, 22, who works at a store that sells veils. She did not want to give her family name, and only smiled when asked for a reason.

A woman with two teenage daughters walked in and overheard the conversation. Soon, she got into a debate with a man.

“Everybody is destroying us,” she said.

“We have seen the war--this is nothing,” he replied.

“Maybe for you, but I want progress,” the woman said. “Should war be the standard?”

Several streets away, Mohammad Amiri, 27, stood on the pavement, selling cactuses. He had listened to the car radio while coming to Tehran from Karaj and had heard the news.

Mr. Amiri said there was blame enough to go around. “No one is oppressed in this story,” he said.

One woman inquired about the price of a very tiny cactus, which Mr. Amiri had grown himself. “It took me a year,” he said.

Mr. Amiri told her the plant was just over a dollar. “7,000 toman--or take it for free,” he said.

The woman walked on.

Mr. Amiri wore a yellow Pink Floyd shirt. He has been listening to the band since was 5, and said his favorite song was “High Hopes.”

“This is such a beautiful song,” he said.

I asked if he had high hopes himself.

“No,” he said. “Not a lot.”

#Iran #Iranian economy

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rationalsanskar · 4 years ago

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Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal | Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies, Headache-Related Disability, and Headache Intensity in Patients with Chronic Daily Headache

3.1. Participants and Procedure

The current semi-experimental study was conducted at Shahid Beheshti governmental hospital of Kashan, Iran in 2016. The research committee of Kashan University of Medical Sciences approved the study (ethical code, IR.KAUMS.MEDNT.REC.1396.53). The participants signed an informed consent form and were given information about the purpose of the study and their right to withdraw from the study. They were assured about the confidentiality of their personal information.

The participants included adults with chronic daily headache/migraine, who were referred by expert neurologists to the neurology clinic of Shahid Beheshti hospital of Kashan, Iran. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1, chronic daily headache according to the international classification of headache disorders (third edition, beta version) (46); 2, willingness to participate in the study; 3, age range of 18 – 60 years; 4, no medical diagnosis of organic brain or psychotic disorders; 5, no history of psychological treatments in the preceding six months; 6, lack of other chronic pain problems; and 7, no history of epileptic seizures or facial nerve pain.

The sample size was determined, based on the information extracted from a study by Gharaei-Ardakani et al. on the effectiveness of ACT in reducing the severity of pain experience in women with chronic headache disorder (47). The sample size was estimated at 20 subjects per group considering the effect of pain severity with a mean (standard deviation) of 3.53 (2.1) for the intervention group and 7.73 (1.7) for the control group at a significance level of 0.05 and power of 95% (second type error, 20%, β, 0.2; d, 2), using the following formula:

Equation 1.

Forty patients were selected via purposive sampling and randomly assigned to ACT and medical treatment as usual (MTAU) groups through block randomization.

3.2. Intervention

The MTAU group was treated with antidepressants, beta-blockers, calcium-channel blockers, or anticonvulsants. The ACT group received ACT training in addition to MTAU. The ACT group was trained for eight weeks by an expert with a Master’s degree in clinical psychology under the supervision of a clinical psychologist with a PhD degree. The adopted Persian ACT protocol for chronic pain, based on the manual of Vowles and colleagues (48), was used in this intervention. The ACT comprised of eight 90-minute weekly group sessions in two months. The overall content of the sessions is presented in Table 1.

Sessions Objectives and Content 1 A, Review of treatment history; B, introduction of the possibility that change is possible, but perhaps not through symptom reduction. 2 A, Review of interactions between feelings, thoughts, and actions that lead to vicious cycles; (B) exercises to control thoughts and/or emotions; C, introduction of the idea that changes in action may mean changes that directly contribute to meaningful and successful living (i.e., values), not changes in stubborn avoidance behaviors; D, mindfulness practice. 3 A, Value-clarification exercises and emphasis on awareness and identification; B, practice of mindful breathing. 4 A, Continued value-clarification exercises; B, discussion about barriers and exercise of value-based actions, even in aversive situations; C, setting an effective goal related to values; D, body sensation awareness exercises. 5 A, Discussion about activity cycling and pacing; B, cognitive defusion exercises; C, awareness exercises. 6 A, Continued cognitive defusion exercises; B, “thought watching” exercise; C, continued discussion of openness to experience discomfort in the service of a meaningful life. 7 A, Awareness and exercises pertaining to the ways in which people add additional, often unnecessary, distress to already distressing situations; B, continued discussion about willingness towards a meaningful life; C, mindful walking exercise. 8 A, Preparation for relapses and setbacks.

3.3. Instruments

3.3.1. Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ)

CERQ is a 36-item questionnaire, consisting of nonadjustment and adjustment emotion regulation strategies. All items are rated on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from one (almost never) to five (almost always) (50); a higher subscale score reflects the greater use of the strategy. Research on cognitive emotion regulation strategies has shown that all subscales have good internal consistencies (51). Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency of the subscales ranges from 0.60 to 0.80 (52). A previous study regarding the reliability of adjustment and nonadjustment strategies reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.91 and 0.87, respectively (50). In another study from Iran, the reliability of CERQ was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.82). Also, regarding the validity of the questionnaire, the correlation coefficients of nonadjustment emotion regulation strategies for depression and anxiety were 0.35 and 0.37, respectively in the general health questionnaire (53).

3.3.2. Headache Disability Inventory (HDI)

HDI (54) is a 25-item scale for the perceived impact of headache on emotional and daily functioning, with three possible options (“No”, 0 score; “Sometimes”, 2 scores; “Yes”, 4 scores). HDI appears to have acceptable short-term (r, 0.93 – 0.95 for one week) and long-term (r, 0.76 – 0.83 for two months) stability (54, 55). In a study from Iran regarding the reliability of HDI, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for emotional and functional aspects were 0.68 and 0.83, respectively. In terms of concurrent validity, the correlation coefficients of emotional and functional factors of HDI and symptom checklist (SCL-25) were 0.71, 0.51, and 0.55, respectively (56).

3.3.3. Diary Scale for Headache

This scale (49) was used as a measure of headache intensity. The patients were asked to record a diary of headache intensity on a rating scale from zero (absence of pain) to ten (most intense disabling headache). The mean headache intensity in one week was calculated by dividing the sum of severity scores by seven. The minimum score of headache severity is zero, while the maximum score is ten. The headache diary was presented to five patients, as well as a neurologist and a psychiatrist, to confirm its content validity (57). The reliability coefficient of the Persian version of the scale is estimated at 0.88 (57).

3.4. Data Analysis

The collected data were analyzed in SPSS version 24 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Chi square test was used to compare the demographics in the groups (Table 2). Independent sample t test was used to identify the baseline differences between the intervention and control groups in terms of clinical characteristics. Also, Kolmogorov- Smirnov test was used to describe the normal distribution of variables, followed by parametric tests. Table 3 presents the mean and standard deviation (SD) of dependent variables. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and repeated measures ANOVA were also performed to compare the groups regarding cognitive emotion regulation strategies, headache-related disability, and headache intensity at pretreatment, posttreatment, and three-month follow-up. P value less than 0.05 was considered significant in all tests.

Variables ACT MTAU Chi Square Age 33.76 33.24 0.551 Gender Male 2 1 0.509 Female 14 16 Educational level High school 1 4 0.562 Diploma 5 6 Associate degree 3 1 Bachelor’s degree 5 4 Master’s degree 2 2 Marital status Married 11 16 0.126 Single 5 1 Occupation Salaried employee 7 6 0.159 Housewife 5 10 Student 4 1 Family history of headache With family history 12 14 0.606 Without family history 4 3 Medication Antidepressant 5 5 0.71 Anticonvulsant 4 4 Beta-blockers 4 2 Calcium-channel blockers 0 1 Painkillers 3 5

Abbreviations: ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; MTAU, Medical Treatment as Usual.

This content was originally published here.

The post Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal | Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies, Headache-Related Disability, and Headache Intensity in Patients with Chronic Daily Headache appeared first on METAMORPHOSIS.

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beenasarwar · 7 years ago

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Following the recent statement signed by prominent academics including Noam Chomsky against the growing censorship in Pakistan, over 70 Pakistani journalists, editors, columnists, media persons from across the media landscape in the country as have signed a joint statement also expressing serious concern and condemning the ongoing curbs on freedom of expression in the country. These curbs include several articles being pulled off media websites in Pakistan like Babar Sattar’s oped (published in this blog) as well as three other pieces in The News on Sunday this past weekend. Others are not published in the first place, like Mobashir Zaidi’s oped in The News, and Gul Bukhari’s article for 16 April that The Nation didn’t run (published in Naya Daur). Below, the journalists’ statement and initial signatures obtained within the first 24-hours below in alphabetical order.

Pakistani journalists, editors, media persons protest against ongoing censorship

We the undersigned journalists, editors, columnists and media persons, express our serious concern and condemn the ongoing curbs on freedom of expression in Pakistan.

Beginning with a crackdown against select media groups and banning the broadcast of various channels, there now is enhanced pressure on all media houses to refrain from covering certain rights based movements.

Media house managements under pressure are dropping regular op-ed columns and removing online editions of published articles. One media house even asked its anchors to stop live shows.

There is growing self censorship and increasingly, discussions on “given news” rather than real news, violating the citizens’ right to information.

These examples represent a fraction of the kind of censorship taking place across the country in different ways.

We strongly protest against all forms of censorship imposed on free media and freedom of information and stand united against it.

(Signed – alphabetical order)

Abbas Nasir, former editor Dawn

Abdul Sattar freelance journalist, Islamabad

Adnan Rehmat, freelance journalist

Afia Salam, freelance journalist, The News, Dawn

Ahmed Noorani, reporter, The News

Allah Bux Arisar, district correspondent daily Dawn and Dawn TV, Umerkot

Annam Lodhi, journalist Media Matters For Democracy

Annie Zaman, Global Voices

Asad Baig, founder, Media Matters for Democracy (MMFD)

Asad Hashim, freelance journalist

Alefia T. Hussain, Consulting Editor, The News on Sunday

Ammara Ahmad, freelance journalist

Amber Rahim Shamsi, freelance journalist

Asma Shirazi, journalist and TV anchor Aaj News

Babar Sattar, columnist, The News

Beena Sarwar, editor, Aman Ki Asha

Farah Zia, editor, The News on Sunday

Farieha Aziz, freelance journalist and co-founder Bolo Bhi

Farooq Mehsud, TV journalist, Chief Editor Waziristan Times

Fauzia Shahid, former Secretary General Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ)

Hamid Mir, columnist and TV anchor

Haroon Rashid, editor BBC Urdu

Hamza Rao, Assistant editor, op-ed, Daily Times

Husain Naqi, senior journalist and former editor Sajjan, The News, Jehd-e-Haq

I.A. Rehman, former editor Pakistan Times

Imtiaz Alam, Secretary General SAFMA

Iqbal Khattak, freelance journalist and RSF Pakistan representative

Irfan Husain, columnist Dawn

Ishtiaq Mehsud, journalist, D. I. Khan

Ismat Jabeen, freelance journalist

Jawad Zulfiqar, journalist, Pakistan Today

Kamila Hyat, former editor, The News Lahore

Kashan Akmal, News Anchor DBTV

Kiran Nazish, independent journalist

Khurram Husain, Business Editor, Dawn

Maham Javaid, assistant editor, The News on Sunday

M. Ziauddin, former editor Express Tribune

Marvi Sirmed, journalist, Daily Times

Mehmal Sarfraz, journalist and producer Neo TV

Mona Kazim Shah, freelance journalist, correspondent DW

Murtaza Solangi, journalist, TV anchor, former Director General Radio Pakistan

Nasim Zehra, journalist, TV anchor Channel 24

Nosheen Abbas, freelance journalist

Nighat Daad, media and censorship researcher

Nusrat Javed, TV anchor, columnist

Quatrina Hosain, independent journalist

Rana Muhammad Azeem president Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), editor Forum 92 News, Lahore

Raza Rumi, editor, Daily Times

Saleem Asmi, former editor Dawn

Sirmed Manzoor, freelance journalist

Saba Eitizaz, journalist, CBC

Sabahat Zakariya, Deputy Editor, The News on Sunday

Sadaf Baig, co-founder Media Matters for Democracy

Sailab Mehsud, journalist, Mashal Radio

Shabana Mahfooz, freelance journalist

Shahzada Irfan Ahmed, Senior Reporter, The News on Sunday

Shahzad Ahmad, Country Director, Bytes For All, Pakistan

Shahzaib Walia, journalist, France 24

Sheen Farrukh, journalist, editor, Inter-Press Communication

Saadia Salahuddin, Assistant Editor, The News on Sunday

Taha Siddiqui, journalist, France 24

Tanzeela Mazhar, TV news anchor

Umar Cheema, reporter, The News

Umber Khairi, Producer, BBC Urdu Service

Umer Ali, freelance journalist, Herald, News Deeply, Thomson Reuters

Waseem Ahmad Shah, senior correspondent, Dawn Peshawar.

Xari Jalil, reporter, Dawn

Zahid Hussain, journalist and columnist, Dawn, Newsline

Zebunnisa Burki, deputy editor oped, The News

Zofeen T. Ebrahim, freelance journalist, IPS News, Dawn

Zohra Yusuf, former editor, The Star Weekend, Herald Publications

Pakistani journalists protest growing censorship Following the recent statement signed by prominent academics including Noam Chomsky against the growing censorship in Pakistan, over 70 Pakistani journalists, editors, columnists, media persons from across the media landscape in the country as have signed a joint statement also expressing serious concern and condemning the ongoing curbs on freedom of expression in the country.

#censorship #Media muzzled #Pakistan #resistance

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thesepeopleproject · 7 years ago

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as a result of their actions in Muslim lands,'ey get angry that these people R stealing their jobs & want 2enforce Sharia law What a hoot!Do these fools even know what is REAL Shariah law? Let me just say- there's not ONE country in the world,even Saudi Arabia,that has Sharia law

— Kashan Shahid (@kashan_shahid) January 8, 2018

#these people

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rationalsanskar · 4 years ago

Text

3.1. Participants and Procedure

Equation 1.

Forty patients were selected via purposive sampling and randomly assigned to ACT and medical treatment as usual (MTAU) groups through block randomization.

3.2. Intervention

3.3. Instruments

3.3.1. Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ)

3.3.2. Headache Disability Inventory (HDI)

3.3.3. Diary Scale for Headache

3.4. Data Analysis

Abbreviations: ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; MTAU, Medical Treatment as Usual.

This content was originally published here.

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rationalsanskar · 4 years ago

Text

Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal – Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies, Headache-Related Disability, and Headache Intensity in Patients with Chronic Daily Headache

The participants included adults with chronic daily headache/migraine, who were referred by expert neurologists to the neurology clinic of Shahid Beheshti hospital of Kashan, Iran. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1, chronic daily headache according to the international classification of headache disorders (third edition, beta version) (35); 2, willingness to participate in the study; 3, age range of 18 – 60 years; 4, no medical diagnosis of organic brain or psychotic disorders; 5, no history of psychological treatments in the preceding six months; 6, lack of other chronic pain problems; and 7, no history of epileptic seizures or facial nerve pain.

The sample size was determined, based on the information extracted from a study by Gharaei-Ardakani et al. on the effectiveness of ACT in reducing the severity of pain experience in women with chronic headache disorder (36). The sample size was estimated at 20 subjects per group considering the effect of pain severity with a mean (standard deviation) of 3.53 (2.1) for the intervention group and 7.73 (1.7) for the control group at a significance level of 0.05 and power of 95% (second type error, 20%, β, 0.2; d, 2), using the following formula:

Equation 1.

Forty patients were selected via purposive sampling and randomly assigned to ACT and medical treatment as usual (MTAU) groups through block randomization.

The MTAU group was treated with antidepressants, beta-blockers, calcium-channel blockers, or anticonvulsants. The ACT group received ACT training in addition to MTAU. The ACT group was trained for eight weeks by an expert with a Master’s degree in clinical psychology under the supervision of a clinical psychologist with a PhD degree. The adopted Persian ACT protocol for chronic pain, based on the manual of Vowles and colleagues (37), was used in this intervention. The ACT comprised of eight 90-minute weekly group sessions in two months. The overall content of the sessions is presented in Table 1.

CERQ is a 36-item questionnaire, consisting of nonadjustment and adjustment emotion regulation strategies. All items are rated on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from one (almost never) to five (almost always) (39); a higher subscale score reflects the greater use of the strategy. Research on cognitive emotion regulation strategies has shown that all subscales have good internal consistencies (40). Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency of the subscales ranges from 0.60 to 0.80 (41). A previous study regarding the reliability of adjustment and nonadjustment strategies reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.91 and 0.87, respectively (39). In another study from Iran, the reliability of CERQ was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.82). Also, regarding the validity of the questionnaire, the correlation coefficients of nonadjustment emotion regulation strategies for depression and anxiety were 0.35 and 0.37, respectively in the general health questionnaire (42).

HDI (43) is a 25-item scale for the perceived impact of headache on emotional and daily functioning, with three possible options (“No”, 0 score; “Sometimes”, 2 scores; “Yes”, 4 scores). HDI appears to have acceptable short-term (r, 0.93 – 0.95 for one week) and long-term (r, 0.76 – 0.83 for two months) stability (43, 44). In a study from Iran regarding the reliability of HDI, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for emotional and functional aspects were 0.68 and 0.83, respectively. In terms of concurrent validity, the correlation coefficients of emotional and functional factors of HDI and symptom checklist (SCL-25) were 0.71, 0.51, and 0.55, respectively (45).

This scale (38) was used as a measure of headache intensity. The patients were asked to record a diary of headache intensity on a rating scale from zero (absence of pain) to ten (most intense disabling headache). The mean headache intensity in one week was calculated by dividing the sum of severity scores by seven. The minimum score of headache severity is zero, while the maximum score is ten. The headache diary was presented to five patients, as well as a neurologist and a psychiatrist, to confirm its content validity (46). The reliability coefficient of the Persian version of the scale is estimated at 0.88 (46).

Abbreviations: ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; MTAU, Medical Treatment as Usual.

This content was originally published here.

The post Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal – Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies, Headache-Related Disability, and Headache Intensity in Patients with Chronic Daily Headache appeared first on METAMORPHOSIS.

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#IFTTT #WordPress

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rationalsanskar · 4 years ago

Text

The participants included adults with chronic daily headache/migraine, who were referred by expert neurologists to the neurology clinic of Shahid Beheshti hospital of Kashan, Iran. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1, chronic daily headache according to the international classification of headache disorders (third edition, beta version) (35); 2, willingness to participate in the study; 3, age range of 18 – 60 years; 4, no medical diagnosis of organic brain or psychotic disorders; 5, no history of psychological treatments in the preceding six months; 6, lack of other chronic pain problems; and 7, no history of epileptic seizures or facial nerve pain.

The sample size was determined, based on the information extracted from a study by Gharaei-Ardakani et al. on the effectiveness of ACT in reducing the severity of pain experience in women with chronic headache disorder (36). The sample size was estimated at 20 subjects per group considering the effect of pain severity with a mean (standard deviation) of 3.53 (2.1) for the intervention group and 7.73 (1.7) for the control group at a significance level of 0.05 and power of 95% (second type error, 20%, β, 0.2; d, 2), using the following formula:

Equation 1.

Forty patients were selected via purposive sampling and randomly assigned to ACT and medical treatment as usual (MTAU) groups through block randomization.

The MTAU group was treated with antidepressants, beta-blockers, calcium-channel blockers, or anticonvulsants. The ACT group received ACT training in addition to MTAU. The ACT group was trained for eight weeks by an expert with a Master’s degree in clinical psychology under the supervision of a clinical psychologist with a PhD degree. The adopted Persian ACT protocol for chronic pain, based on the manual of Vowles and colleagues (37), was used in this intervention. The ACT comprised of eight 90-minute weekly group sessions in two months. The overall content of the sessions is presented in Table 1.

CERQ is a 36-item questionnaire, consisting of nonadjustment and adjustment emotion regulation strategies. All items are rated on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from one (almost never) to five (almost always) (39); a higher subscale score reflects the greater use of the strategy. Research on cognitive emotion regulation strategies has shown that all subscales have good internal consistencies (40). Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency of the subscales ranges from 0.60 to 0.80 (41). A previous study regarding the reliability of adjustment and nonadjustment strategies reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.91 and 0.87, respectively (39). In another study from Iran, the reliability of CERQ was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.82). Also, regarding the validity of the questionnaire, the correlation coefficients of nonadjustment emotion regulation strategies for depression and anxiety were 0.35 and 0.37, respectively in the general health questionnaire (42).

Abbreviations: ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; MTAU, Medical Treatment as Usual.

This content was originally published here.

from WordPress http://metamorphosis.net.in/iranian-red-crescent-medical-journal-effectiveness-of-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy-in-cognitive-emotion-regulation-strategies-headache-related-disability-and-headache-intensity-in-patients-wi/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iranian-red-crescent-medical-journal-effectiveness-of-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy-in-cognitive-emotion-regulation-strategies-headache-related-disability-and-headache-intensity-in-patients-wi

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