Introduction: Pregnancy is associated with various physical and psychological changes. Pregnant women may experience a lot of anxiety. The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral education on anxiety during pregnancy and delivery method in Primiparous women. Methods: This was a semi-experimental study using a pre-test post-test control-group design. The study population included all primiparous women admitted to Asalian Hospital in Khorramabad, Iran, in 2014. 24 women were selected via convenience sampling based on certain inclusion and exclusion criteria and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. In addition to providing both groups with normal medical care during pregnancy, only the experimental group received twelve 90 minute sessions of cognitive-behavioral education. Data were collected using a researcher-made demographic questionnaire and the Van den Berg Questionnaire Pregnancy Related Anxiety. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, analysis of covariance, and chi-square tests using SPSS (v. 20). Results: Mean scores of anxiety during pregnancy in the experimental group decreased significantly as opposed to the control group (P < 0.001). Additionally, there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control group in terms of delivery method (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Prenatal cognitive-behavioral education was effective in reducing the anxiety of pregnant women and in referring them for vaginal delivery method. Therefore, establishing and promoting various methods for low pain childbirth and training pregnant women for choosing the vaginal delivery method is recommended.

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Background and Purpose:Aggressive behavior is the most frequent behavioral problem in the preschool children. Numerous factors play a role in this context, including the lack of social skills. In this regard, play is considered as one of the most efficient methods in reducing children's externalizing behavior problems and improving their communicative and social skills. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of group play therapy on the aggressive behaviors and social skills of preschool children. Method: This study was a quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest control group design. The study sample consisted of 24 preschool children with aggressive behaviors in Lahijan city over the academic year 2015-2016. They were selected by cluster sampling and then assigned randomly to either the experimental or control group. Preschool Aggression Scale (Vahedi et al., 2008) and Matson Evaluation of Social Skills (1983) were used for data collection. The experimental group received eight 45-minute sessions of play therapy (twice a week). One week after the end of the sessions, posttest was administrated to both groups. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. Results: Findings showed that group play therapy was significantly effective in reducing aggression and its components like invasive-verbal aggression, invasive-physical aggression, relational aggression and impulsive aggression and in improving the appropriate social skills and selfconfidence (P=0.000). It also reduced significantly the inappropriate audacity, impulsiveness, jealousy and isolation (P=0.000). Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that play therapy gives this opportunity to the children to show their inner feelings caused by stress, frustration, fear, and confusion and to learn how to control or stop aggression. Since group play therapy can help the preschool children to learn skills like compliance with social rules, interact and collaborate with others, and management of negative emotions in interpersonal relationships; hence, using this method to prepare them for entering the broader social world seems necessary.Citation: Ebrahimi T, Aslipoor A, Khosrojavid M. The effect of group play therapy on aggressive behaviors and social skills in preschool children.

Background: Depression includes negative interpretations of events, dislike of the self, and negative appraisal of the future. Objectives: The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of educational programs of cognitive-behavior modification and feeding behavior on serotonin levels and depression symptoms in university students. Materials & Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest and a control group design. The study population included all male and female bachelor degree students in the Faculty of Literature and Humanities of the University of Guilan, Guilan Province, Iran at the time of the research. Among 2854 students, using Morgan’s table, the sample size was determined as 340. In the following, 24 students with depression symptoms and other inclusion criteria were selected as the sample and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. During the twelve sessions of training, the number of participants decreased from 24 to 16. The study tools included the Beck depression inventory (1996), the food frequency questionnaire (2017), 21 food enjoyment questionnaire, and the blood test. The obtained data were analyzed by 1-way analysis of covariance in SPSS v. 24. Results: The analysis showed that the use of cognitive-behavior modification training reduced students’ depression (P<0.01). However, the use of feeding behavior training did not increase serotonin levels in students (P>0.05). Conclusion: Among people with depression symptoms, cognitive-behavior modification by focusing on their negative self-talk can be useful in creating sensible thoughts and positive inner dialogue. But in these people, feeding behavior training for two months did not change serotonin levels.