IntroductionThe importance of stigma toward patients with mental illness in medical students as future physicians cannot be overemphasized. There is currently no formal training to reduce stigma toward mental illness in medical students in their educational curriculums in Iran like most other low and middle income countries. Therefore, aiming to provide a practical and effective training package focused on reducing stigma toward patients with mental illness in medical students, the current study conducted, as an expert panel with Delphi method, based on a scoping review, to develop an education package to improve attitude of medical students toward patients with mental illness.Materials and MethodsWe surveyed the available international databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, PsycINFO, Tripdatabase, Web of Science, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews as well as Persian databases including Iranmedex, SID, Irandoc and Magiran in February and March 2020. After an extensive review of related resources, 13 articles met our inclusion criteria. Then, we extracted the related data including type and duration of the interventions, sample size, mean and standard deviation of stigma scores before and after interventions. To develop the package among the included interventions, we asked 16 experts in psychology, psychiatry, and social medicine to rate the interventions based on a number of variables such as effectiveness, feasibility and applicability in a Delphi process.ResultsThe selected intervention in Delphi method with consensus of experts included a set of four sequential interactive interventions: showing a movie and discussing it, psychiatric training including contact with people who affected psychiatric disorders, social communication with people who affected psychiatric disorders, and group discussion on defining stigma and personal experiences.ConclusionIn the present study, we recommend a set of interventions to reduce stigma toward patients with mental illness among medical students in the form of a package of combined, interactive and sequential interventions that have been previously been shown to be effective in reducing stigma related to mental illness. We expect that implementation of these interventions would reduce mental illness stigma in medical students; which needs further verification.

IntroductionThe aim of the present study was to evaluate the attitudes and performance of cardiologists regarding sexual issues in patients with cardiovascular diseases.MethodsA nationwide survey was conducted in a sample of cardiologists, representative of Iranian cardiologists, in 2015.Main Outcome MeasuresAppropriate questionnaires were developed and used to ask participants about their attitudes, performance, and barriers regarding discussing sexual issues with patients with cardiovascular disease.ResultsThe study population consisted of 202 cardiologists (138 men and 63 women) with a mean age of 44.25 years (SD = 8.45). Overall, 93.15% of cardiologists agreed with the importance of discussing sexual issues with their patients with cardiovascular diseases. Almost 76.7% of cardiologists agreed they had a responsibility to deal with patients' sexual problems, and 79.9% of them were aware of the association of cardiovascular disease with sexual problems of cardiac patients, but only 33% of them were confident in their knowledge and skills in this regard. Only 10.6% of cardiologists reported they frequently or always assessed sexual problems with their patients, but 51.50% of them stated they were responding to patients' questions about sexual problems. There was a significant association between performance and responsibility.ConclusionThe results of this study indicate a gap between cardiologist's attitudes and their actual performance and that their professional responsibility to address patients' sexual issues is a significant parameter for better performance.

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Background The present study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the weight-related experiential avoidance (AAQW) in overweight and obese treatment seeker in the clinical setting. Methods This sample consists of 220 male and female overweight or obesity treatment seeker from Overweight and obesity centers who agreed to fill out the self-reported measures. Results Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported 3-factor structures of AAQW, including (weight as a barrier to living, Food as Control, and weight-stigma). Furthermore, the internal consistency of AAQW indicates an acceptable range (α = .70); Also, expected associations between AAQW and external correlates (e.g., BES, AAQ-II, KIMS, BDI-II, and CFQ) supported the measure’s convergent validity in a sample of overweight and obese treatment seeker in the clinical setting. Conclusions Overall, our study offers that the Persian version of weight-related experiential avoidance has psychometrically valid and reliable tools to assess experiential avoidance. Furthermore, weight-related experiential avoidance is associated with higher severity of binge eating symptoms, higher psychological inflexibility levels, experiential avoidance, and more cognitive fusion and depression symptomology.