Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal

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Background and Objectives: The GHQ-12 is a valid mental health screening tool. One of the proposed scoring styles for the GHQ-12 is C-GHQ. This study was designed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the GHQ-12 with the C-GHQ scoring style in women living in Kashan. Materials and Methods: In this psychometric analysis study, GHQ-12 was translated from English to Persian through back & forward method. A total of 139 women, referred to two health centers in Kashan in summer 2007, were selected through sequential sampling. Data were collected using the GHQ-12 and were scored with the proposed style. Reliability was determined via stability and internal consistency approaches. Validity was assessed via concurrent validity and exploratory factor analysis. The data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), spearman-brown, Guttman, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and factor analysis in the SPSS-16. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0/79. The questionnaire stability was reported excellent using the test-re-test method. The item-total correlation confirmed the reliability. The GHQ and life satisfaction scale scores had significant correlation (r=-0/462, p<0/0001). The factor analysis extracted two factors with Eigen value more than one which could explain % 46/66 of the total variance Conclusion: The Persian GHQ-12 with C-GHQ scoring style was valid and reliable in measuring women’s mental health.

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Background: As a chronic disease, heart failure (HF) is a growing problem that not only impacts patients but also their family members and friends. Self-care is the main part of HF treatment. Despite the significance of determining variables involved in self-care, the relationships of self-efficacy, illness perception, and social support with self-care and the predictive roles of these variables in the treatment of HF have not been investigated.
Objectives: The present study was aimed at exploring the predictive roles of self-efficacy, illness perception, and social support in self-care of patients with heart failure.
Methods: In this predictive correlation study, 149 patients with HF were selected through convenience sampling from Tabriz Research Treatment Centre of Heart in 2016. To collect data, a demographic information questionnaire, self-care behaviour scale, general self-efficacy (GSE), brief illness perception questionnaire (Brief-IPQ), and social support scale were used. To analyse data, SPSS software version 16, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple stepwise regression analyses were employed.
Results: Out of 149 subjects, 102 (68%) participants were male, and 47 (32%) of them were female. The mean and standard deviation of samples’ age were (64.40±10.32) ranging from 37 to 88 years. Most of participants were married (82%). The mean scores were as follows: Self-care (40.66±13.16), self-efficacy (45.81±22.03), illness perception (56.05±18.24), and social support (49.09±6.74). Data analysis demonstrated significant correlations between illness perception and self-care (p<0.001, r=0.649), self-efficacy and self-care (p<0.001, r=-0.678), social support and self-care (p<0.001, r=-0.518), and age and self-care (p<0.001, r=-0.506). The standardized coefficient of illness perception was (β=0.274), social support was (β=-0.237), self-efficacy was (β=-0.230), and age was (β=-0.211). In addition, 56% of self-care variance is explained by age, social support, self-efficacy, and illness perception.
Conclusion: All of the investigated variables were found to have a predictive role in self-care. Illness perception was recognized as the most effective factor in predicting self-care. Hence, illness perception can be used to explain 27% of self-care ability of patients with HF.
 

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Background: Severe early childhood caries is the most important dental problem among children younger than three years of age.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between time and manner of weaning and severe early childhood caries (S-ECC).
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed in Kerman, Iran, in 2020. The study population consisted of 130 mothers and their children aged 18 to 30 months with and without S-ECC who visited the health centers in Kerman. Clinical examinations of the children's teeth were carried out with a dental mirror by a trained dentist after drying the surfaces of the maxillary incisors. The presence or absence of S-ECC was marked in a relevant checklist. Then, the mothers were asked to answer questions about the way they feed their children and the weaning method used in case of weaning off their children. Finally, data was analyzed using t-test in SPSS version 16.
Results:: The mean age of the children was 24.4 ± 4.7 months, and 52% of them were girls. Most of the mothers had used the traditional methods to wean their children. The mean age at weaning was 23.8 months. There was a significant relationship between the age at which the child was weaned and S-ECC. In other words, children with S-ECC were significantly older at weaning than those children without S-ECC (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Children with S-ECC had a longer breastfeeding period than children without S-ECC; thus, it seems that one of the reasons for the high prevalence of such caries in children in Kerman could be the longer period of breastfeeding or bottle-feeding. Therefore, an appropriate pattern of breastfeeding is effective in preventing S-ECC.

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Background: Chronic diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as one of the hot topics in the literature, have frequently been associated with sexual dysfunction.
Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness psycho educational group intervention on improving the sexual function of women with MS.
Methods: To this end, 350 women with MS from Isfahan province, who had medical records in Kashani Hospital and Isfahan MS Center, were first screened out by the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), among whom the ones scored below 28 were clinically diagnosed with sexual dysfunction. Then 47 patients with sexual dysfunction were randomly assigned to experimental (N=24) and control (N=23) groups using the simple random sampling method. The experimental group received five sessions of Mindfulness-Based Group Psychotherapy; however, the control group received no treatment. The two groups were assessed by a pre-test, post-test, and two follow-ups (one and two months after the end of the intervention, respectively), and MANCOVA was used to analyze the data in SPSS software 16.
Results: According to the results, mindfulness-based psycho educational group therapy was effective in improving the sexual function of women with MS in all the six domains (namely desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain) and the total FSFI score (p≤.05)).
Conclusion: The findings revealed the effectiveness of psycho educational group intervention in improving the sexual function of women with MS. Accordingly, clinicians and therapists working with this group of women are recommended to include mindfulness in their interventions.