Improving access to psychological intervention in low-middle income settings: Results from a waitlist-controlled, proof-of-concept trial of the MemFlex intervention for trauma-exposed Afghan youth.

Background: Low-intensity interventions targeting a range of mental health issues offer a scalable approach for young trauma survivors in low-middle income countries.

Aims: Here, we present results from a proof-of-concept, randomized, waitlist-controlled trial evaluating MemFlex, an autobiographical memory-based intervention, for trauma-exposed Afghan youth residing in Iran. MemFlex seeks to reduce the negative and overgeneral memory biases which maintain and predict poor mental health.

The Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Emotional and Cognitive Vulnerability in Iranian Women With Breast Cancer.

The psychological cost on emotional well-being due to the collateral damage brought about by COVID-19 in accessing oncological services for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment has been documented by recent studies in the United Kingdom. The current study set out to examine the effect of delays to scheduled oncology services on emotional and cognitive vulnerability in women with a breast cancer diagnosis in Iran, one of the very first countries to be heavily impacted by COVID-19. One hundred thirty-nine women with a diagnosis of primary breast cancer answered a series of online questionnaires to assess the current state of rumination, worry, and cognitive vulnerability as well as the emotional impact of COVID-19 on their mental health.

Affective working memory capacity in refugee adolescents.

Objective: High numbers of adolescents today are exposed to conflict-related trauma, with trauma-exposure being associated with adverse biopsychosocial outcomes. Here we investigated the influence of trauma-exposure and high levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms on cognitive functioning in trauma-related compared to neutral contexts.

Method: Afghan adolescent refugees with high levels of PTSD symptomatology and non-trauma-exposed Afghan adolescent refugee controls (N = 47; 43% female; aged 13-19 years, M = 15.

Investigating Emotion in Malay, Australian and Iranian Individuals with and without Depression.

This study investigated the influence of culture and depression on (1) emotion priming reactions, (2) the recall of subjective experience of emotion, and (3) emotion meaning. Members of individualistic culture (Australia, n = 42) and collectivistic culture (Iran, n = 32, Malaysia, n = 74) with and without depression completed a biological motion task, subjective experience questionnaire and emotion meaning questionnaire. Those with depression, regardless of cultural group, provided significantly fewer correct responses on the biological motion task than the control group.

A preliminary study investigating time perception in adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.

Objective: The aim of the current study was to conduct a preliminary investigation into time perception in adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and healthy controls.

Method: Iranian adolescents with PTSD (n = 15) or MDD (n = 15) and healthy, non-trauma-exposed control participants (n = 15) completed 3 measures of time perception: a verbal time estimation task, a production task, and a reproduction task.

Results: The PTSD group was found to have significantly poorer overall time perception accuracy compared to the control group (d = 1.