The long and short forms of the GDS have excellent properties as screening instruments for major depression in older dwellers in Iran, particularly in urban areas, as presented in our findings.

The short and long forms of the GHQ-28 are suitable screening instruments for elderly Iranian residents, particularly those living in urban areas.

BackgroundAlthough several socio-medical risk factors have been identified for preterm labor, there is a gap in understanding the underlying etiology of preterm labor.ObjectivesThe current study aimed to analyze the relationship pathway of perceived social support, stressful life events, and other psychosocial risk factors during pregnancy with incidence of preterm labor.Materials and MethodsIn a prospective cohort study in four hospitals in Tehran, 500 pregnant women in their 24th to 28th gestational weeks were studied. They filled out a self-report questionnaire on perceived social support, depression, anxiety, stress and stressful life events. Sociodemographic characteristics were also assessed. The participants were followed up until labor, and the data about mother and the newborn were collected after labor. The data were analyzed by SPSS 16 and Lisrel 8.8 software programs using pathway analysis.ResultsThe final path model fit well (CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = .064). The results showed that depression, anxiety, and stress (β = -0.18) directly, and stressful life events indirectly (β= -0.0396) had the most predict on gestational age at labor. Perceived social support, directly through socioeconomic status (β=0.25), and indirectly through stress, depression and anxiety (β= -0.26) affected the gestational age at birth (β= 0.0468).ConclusionsThe current study showed that supporting pregnant mother moderates psychological problems such as stress, anxiety, and depression, and hence reduces preterm labor.

Neurological disorders include a wide variety of mostly multifactorial diseases related to the development, survival, and function of the neuron cells. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been extensively studied in neurological disorders, and in a number of instances have been reproducibly linked to disease as risk factors. The RIT2 gene has been recently shown to be associated with a number of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and autism. In the study reported here, we investigated the association of the rs12456492 and rs16976358 SNPs of the RIT2 gene with PD, essential tremor (ET), autism, schizophrenia (SCZ), and bipolar disorder (BPD; total of 2290 patients), and 1000 controls, by using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Significant association was observed between rs12456492 and two disorders, PD and ET, whereas rs16976358 was found to be associated with autism, SCZ, and BPD. Our findings are indicative of differential association between the RIT2 SNPs and different neurological disorders.

Background:Preterm delivery is still the primary cause of mortality and morbidity in infants, which shows a problematic condition in the care of pregnant women all over the world. This review study describes prevalence and psycho - socio-demographic as well as obstetrical risk factors related to live preterm delivery (PTD) in the recent decade in Iran.Methods:A narrative review was performed in Persian and international databases including PubMed, SID, Google Scholar, Iran Medex, Magiran and Irandoc from 2001 to 2010 with following keywords: preterm delivery and pregnancy outcomes with (prevalence, socioeconomic condition, structural determinant, Intermediary determinants, Psychosocial factor, Behavioral factor and Maternal circumstance, Health system) All of article was reviewed then categorized based on WHO model.Results:Totally 52 article were reviewed and 35 articles were selected, of which 26 were cross-sectional or longitudinal, 9 were analytical (cohort or case-control). The prevalence rates of preterm delivery in different cities of Iran were reported between 5.6% in Quom to 39.4% in Kerman. The most common social factors in structural determinant were educational level of mother, and in intermediary determinants were Psychosocial factor (maternal anxiety and stress during pregnancy), Behavioral factor and Maternal circumstance (violation and trauma) and in Health system, lack of prenatal care.Conclusion:The prevalence rate of preterm delivery is a matter of concern. Since many psycho-social factors may affect on the condition and its high rate in poor communities might reveals a causal relationship among biological and psychosocial factors, performing etiological investigations is recommended.