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. Results indicated that delays in accessing oncology services significantly increased COVID related emotional vulnerability. Regression analyses revealed that after controlling for the effects of sociodemographic and clinical variables, women’s COVID related emotional vulnerability explained higher levels of ruminative response and chronic worry as well as poorer cognitive function. This study is the first in Iran to demonstrate that the effects of COVID-19 on emotional health amongst women affected by breast cancer can exaggerate anxiety and depressive related symptoms increasing risks for clinical levels of these disorders. Our findings call for an urgent need to address these risks using targeted interventions exercising resilience.

Autobiographical memory distortions are a key feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial ( N = 43), we evaluated an autobiographical memory flexibility intervention, MemFlex. We aimed to determine whether the mechanism-focused intervention, which aims to improve autobiographical memory processes, may also affect other cognitive predictors of PTSD and potentially reduce PTSD symptoms in Iranian trauma survivors diagnosed with PTSD. Results indicated significant, moderate to large between-groups effect sizes in favor of MemFlex, relative to wait-list control, for the targeted cognitive mechanism of autobiographical memory flexibility and PTSD symptoms. A large, significant effect was also observed on maladaptive posttraumatic cognitions—a strong predictor of PTSD prognosis, which is a key target of high-intensity cognitive therapies for PTSD. Findings support future completion of a scaled-up trial to evaluate treatment efficacy of MemFlex for PTSD to determine whether MemFlex may offer a culturally adaptive, low-cost, low-intensity intervention able to improve cognitive mechanisms of PTSD.

Introduction: People with post-traumatic stress disorder suffer from different cognitive and emotional problems. Meta-analyses studies investigating PTSD cognitive functions have been revealed that working memory and speed processing are two vital components that can explain PTSD's cognitive dysfunctions. This study aims to investigate emotional working memory capacity and speed of processing via an emotional working memory capacity task. Methods: A total number of 50 participants (20 PTSD, 15 Non-PTSD, 15 healthy control) from road traffic accident recruited via social media advertisements. All participants screened based on SCID and then invited for the working memory and speed processing assessment session. In this study, The Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Hopkins Symptom Checklist, and emotional working memory capacity task has been used. Results: Mixed ANOVA repeated measure has revealed that speed processing in the PTSD group is significantly lower than the Non-PTSD group. Also person correlation has revealed that in the PTSD group reaction time in the adequate correct response trials with trauma-related distractors has a negative correlation with avoidance and hyperarousal symptoms and also there is a significant negative correlation between reaction time in the correct responses in trials with white noise distractor and intrusion-related symptoms in PTSD group. Conclusion: It seems that exposure with vague distractors (white noise) can result from more intrusion and less cognitive efficacy, requiring more investigation in future studies.