Psicología anormal y del comportamiento

Background:
National guidelines in the UK and US promote attention to variations in patients’ cultural background in choice of treatment for depression as these significantly affect outcomes. People from Muslim backgrounds are more likely to use religious coping techniques for mental health problems than other social groups. There is evidence that faith-sensitive therapies can achieve earlier results than secular treatments for this population. However, little guidance is available on the form and content of culturally appropriate interventions.
Method:
Behavioral Activation, an effective therapy for depression, was culturally adapted to meet the needs of Muslim patients. A self-help resource was developed as part of this process, drawing on MRC guidelines for development of complex interventions. The resource was piloted with patients attending primary care therapy services in Bradford, an ethnically diverse city in the UK. Feedback was obtained from patients, therapists, supervisors and managers through evaluation of pre-pilot training and semi-structured interviews at the end of the study. Analysis of results informed further refinement of the self-help booklet.
Conclusion:
Most practitioners and participants felt the intervention was acceptable and feasible within NHS settings. Whilst recognizing the need for and value of the self-help resource, however, practitioners often struggled to engage with their patients’ religious identity or support the use of ‘positive religious coping’ within a therapy setting. Findings suggest a need for implementation support at sites wishing to use this culturally adapted intervention.

‘Possession’ has been observed in many forms and in many countries, especially in rural communities, country sides, in poor, uneducated, marginalized and tribal population, but in urban areas and metropolitan cities as wellin their slums and higher societies. It has been reported extensively by anthropologists, sociologists and lately by psychologists. To understand dynamics of such behaviour needs enormous and extensive resources, time, patience and passion. Why people are possessed? What are their conflicts and psychological needs? How it is resolving and serving them? Why surrounding community believe it? And why it became their way of life? To answer these questions: First we will deal with possession behaviour in its totality to have a fuller understanding of such phenomenon, than Purvaj Syndrome will be presented in brief, a possession phenomenon of helping nature investigated by the author in a rural community in India.

Background:
The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) represents one of the most popular, comprehensive and well-established measure of emotion regulation, being widely used in clinical and nonclinical settings. Despite it widespread use, there is no agreement about the factorial structure and majority of prior research has been focused in replicate the original DERS model, while studies examining competing models are lacking. Thus, further examination is needed in order to ascertain the more appropriate factor structure. The present study sought to examine the latent factor structure of the DERS by testing several alternative models using a confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) strategy.
Methods:
Six-hundred and nine adults (367 men) from general population aged from 18 to 51 years old completed the DERS.
Results:
Findings did not support the original six-factor correlated model. Rather, CFA studies showed that a four-factor correlated model including lack of emotional clarity, no acceptance of emotional responses, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior, and impulse control difficulties had better fit to the data. Drawing on empirical research from affective neuroscience, a two correlated second-order CFA model accounting for the four factors was examined. The hypothesized two factors were represented by difficulties in emotion processing and difficulties in the regulation of emotional response. Results showed acceptable and similar goodness-of-fit indices compared to the four-factor correlated model, while test for model comparison revealed non-significant differences between fit of the two models.
Conclusion:
Results indicate that both a four-factor correlated model and a two higher-order correlated factor model are adequate to explain the latent factor structure of DERS. However, the last model is recommended since it provides researchers with a more parsimonious, neurobiological-based conceptualization and assessment of emotion regulation. Limitations and directions for future investigation are also addressed.

Arkenstone fever is a phenomenon of a sudden boost of interest among many Indonesians towards the stones during 2014-2015. Accessories were equipped with them, minerals were hunt, and the economic for the small and medium-sized enterprises were expanded. In this study, we seek to determine and explain the underlying social psychological factors behind this trend. In 2015, we gathered 100 participants (Mage=22.61 years old, SDage=3.818 years) living in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and possessing at least one arkenstone to examine their Aesthetic Style, Illusory Belief, Health Belief, and Connectedness to Nature to arrange a theoretical model explaining the Fondness of arkenstone. Using path analysis, we found out that Aesthetic Style primarily predicts the Fondness of arkenstone. Connectedness to Nature and Illusory Belief were found out to be able to predict Aesthetic Style, and finally, participant’s Health Belief can predict their Illusory Belief. Overall, the theoretical model formed from these findings can be integrated into a model.

Objective: Since the stress management program can train necessary skills to cope with stress; therefore, the aim of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of stress management training on the hardiness of breast cancer patients.
Method: This quasi-experimental research designed with the pretest-posttest control groups. 60 women with breast cancer in the recovery period after chemotherapy were selected based on accessible sampling from cancer charity “Sepas” in Tehran and randomly divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental group, during 8 weekly 2-hour sessions was trained in stress management. Hardiness experimental and control groups once before and once after the program was evaluated using questionnaire Kobasa hardiness.
Results: Results showed that the experimental and control groups before the intervention of the variables are not significantly different. Multivariable analysis of covariance showed that there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test score in the experimental group. Finally, the results indicated that stress management training increases the hardiness and its components (such as commitment, control, and challenge) in women with breast cancer.
Conclusions: Therefore, stress management training for women with breast cancer can be used as an effective way to improve psychological care for this group of women at health centers.

Background: Disclosure of HIV positive status to at least one family members or relative is paramount important for adherence to highly active anti retroviral therapy (HAART) which enters increase survival and quality life of the people living with HIV (PLHIV). Despite the importance of HIV sero positive status disclosure most PLHIV concealed their sero status from their family/relatives even from their sexual partner. The aim of this study was to assess factors that affect PLHIV to disclose their HIV positive status to their sexual partner.
Methods: A cross-sectional study using quantitative research approach supplemented by qualitative methods was conducted from October to March 2013 among 360 people living with HIV (PLHIV) attending ART clinic in Ambo Hospital. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data were collected through face to face interview and focus group discussion using pre-tested structured questionnaire and semi structured interview guides, respectively. Crude and adjusted odds ratios using logistic regression analysis were used to explore associations between different variables and HIV status disclosure.
Results: The study revealed that the prevalence of HIV status disclosure to at least one person was 86.2% (95% CI: 82.5-89.3); whereas 84.9% study subjects were disclose their HIV positive sero status to their sexual partner. Marital status (AOR = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.036-0.39), knowledge of partner HIV status (AOR = 5.7, 95% CI: 1.89-17.4), prior discussion about HIV/AIDs (AOR = 6.3, 95% CI: 1.05-38.12), length since HIV test done (AOR = 0.05, 95% CI: 0.01-0.32), and being on HAART (AOR = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.03-0.46) were significant predictors of HIV status disclosure to sexual partners.
Conclusion: Knowledge of partner HIV status, prior discussion about HIV/AIDS before test, length since tested for HIV and ART initiation were significantly associated with HIV positive status disclosure to sexual partner. Hence the health workers should address the issue of open discussion among couples to enhance HIV status disclosure to sexual partner and decrease HIV status transmission by hiding once HIV positive status due to fear of divorce, stigma and discrimination.

For many decades, the consequences of “stress” have been perceived as a “unidirectional” pathway where some stressful life conditions cause “mental stress” that activates the brain’s stress response systems, which sequentially affect many of the major body systems especially gastrointestinal tract. The striking upsurge in incidence of neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, in the last five decades, appeals to a crucial “bidirectional” interaction between the nervous system with other body systems. Such fast expansion of these disorders enforces also a causal role for environmental insults inflicted by the changing ecosystems as well as the modernization of human life style including lavish use of antibiotics, high hygiene standards and predominant utilization of urban western diet. It is also becoming clear that several neurological and psychiatric disorders are more and more being linked to a wide range of systemic dysfunctions including, most notably, immunological impairments and microbial manipulation. We believe that nervous system development and function are not only highly coupled with other physiological body systems but also with non-physiologic microenvironments created by pathogenic agents or dormant commensals. Direct or bystander effects of certain infectious agents or complex microbiome communities on brain development and function could modulate and evoke deviated behavioral responses and abnormal psychological outcomes. We think a better understanding of the basic components of this bidirectional interaction and the comprehensive characterization of the involved pathways will produce significant insights into the way nervous system diseases evolve and yield a novel array of therapeutic strategies. Here, we discuss different aspects of the dynamic crosstalk between the nervous system and microenvironments created by long-lasting pathogenic infections or by permanent commensal microbial communities. To pursue this goal, we review hypotheses and evidences that link certain pathogens or microbiome compositions to the development of neuropsychiatric diseases and/or neurodevelopmental disorders in genetically predisposed persons.