Journal of

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral stress management training on anxiety, cognitive avoidance, and health-related quality of life in patients with chronic pain. This semi-experimental study used a pre-test-post-test design with follow-up and a control group. The statistical population consisted of patients with chronic pain in Tehran during the second half of 2023. Thirty patients were selected using purposive sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in 10 sessions of cognitive-behavioral stress management training (Hajilu et al., 2018). To evaluate the impact of the intervention, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (1990), the Sexton and Dugas Cognitive Avoidance Scale (2004), and the Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire (2003) were administered at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages. Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that the intervention significantly reduced anxiety and cognitive avoidance while improving health-related quality of life (P<0.05). The results suggest that cognitive-behavioral stress management training can be an effective intervention for improving the mental health and quality of life of patients with chronic pain.

The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a quality-of-life enhancement educational package on loneliness and death anxiety among older adults. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population consisted of older adults residing in the Social Security Nursing Home in Kermanshah, Iran. Thirty participants were selected through simple random sampling and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups (15 participants in each group). The experimental group received the quality-of-life enhancement educational package in 10 sessions, while the control group received no intervention. The research instruments included the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Templer Death Anxiety Scale. Data were analyzed using univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The findings showed that the quality-of-life enhancement educational package significantly reduced loneliness and death anxiety among older adults in the experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.001). Furthermore, the effect sizes were 0.51 for loneliness and 0.41 for death anxiety, indicating the substantial effectiveness of the intervention. The findings suggest that the quality-of-life enhancement educational package can be used as a comprehensive and evidence-based intervention to improve older adults’ mental health and reduce loneliness and death anxiety.
 

Lupus, as a chronic autoimmune disorder, has extensive psychological consequences on the mental health of patients in addition to physical complications. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of schema therapy on the level of internalized shame and improving the quality of life in patients with lupus. This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all patients with lupus referring to Imam Hussein (AS) Hospital in Tehran, from which 30 people were selected using convenience sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (15 people) and control groups (15 people). Data collection tools included the Internalized Shame Questionnaire and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire. The experimental group underwent eight 90-minute sessions of schema therapy intervention, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. The results of data analysis showed that after controlling for pre-test effects, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups in the post-test. Schema therapy significantly reduced internalized shame and increased quality of life scores in the physical, psychological, and social dimensions of patients in the experimental group compared to the control group. Based on the findings of this study, schema therapy is an effective intervention to reduce negative psychological burdens and improve the quality of life of patients with lupus by challenging early maladaptive schemas and replacing them with efficient behavioral patterns, and can be used alongside medical treatments.