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History and Objectives: Communication skills between doctors and patients are very important in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. In order to determine the attitude and communication skills of doctors towards their patients the present study was carried out in Shiraz in 1998. Communication skills were assessed on the basis of patients and researchers interpretation of such skills and attitude of doctors towards training and application of communicational skills of doctors with their patients.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was carried out on doctors. Five percent of doctors were selected randomly. From every private clinic, 3-5 patients were selected. Communication skills were assessed on the basis of sis typical behavior of doctors from point of view of patients and researchers. Attitudes of doctors were assessed by 19 Licret. Communication skills were classified as poor, average and good and attitude were classified as positive and negative.

Results: Patients reported 12% and 60% of doctors poor and good communicational skills. With increasing age, education, patient’s expectation of communicational skills increased. Female doctors and general practitioners displayed better communicational skills compare to the specialists. Training and application of communicational skills were states as useful among 65% of doctors this attitude was similar among male and female doctors regardless of their specialty. However, older doctors and those with greater number of working years had put greater emphasis on the training and its application.

Conclusion: Communication skills between doctors and their patients are low. Due to its importance, it is subjected that continuing training should be conducted one regular basis.

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History and Objectives: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a critical emergency measure that health personnel are encountered. Because of its unpredictability regarding time and place, it is necessary to have skilled personnel, especially inn emergency center. There are some reports on inappropriate skill and knowledge of health personnel in this field. Therefore, this study was carried out to determine level of knowledge and skill of health personnel in Kashan hospitals in 1999.

Materials and Methods: The descriptive strategy of this study was performed on medical and health personnel of Kashan hospitals. For this purpose, a 20-item questionnaire on resuscitation prepared. Personal skills for tracheal tubing and cardiac academic massage were evaluated and a scoring of appropriate, moderate and inappropriate was used. For statistical analysis Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used.

Results: This study was carried out on 93 individuals, 47 males and 46 females with average age of 30.2 years. The results showed that none of them had appropriate knowledge and 82% of them had in appropriate knowledge and there was a positive relationship between this parameter and their academic field (P<0.0001). In addition, 71% of them showed inappropriate skill and only 7.5% had appropriate skill. Meanwhile, interns, midwives and health-assistants had not appropriate skill. Medical techniques showed appropriate skill with a positive relationship with their academic field (P<0.02).
Conclusion and Recommendations: There is not enough skill and knowledge regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation and it is necessary to hold appropriate re-educational programs.

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Background: Most aspects of development are dependent or guided by visual system. Defect of visual perception can cause secondary mental retardation in cerebral palsy children with normal intelligence. So, identifying the effective factors on visual perceptual skills and early treatment of them in these children can prevent learning disorders, slowing the treatment process and secondary problems. This study was designed to compare the effect of chronological age, strabismus and sex factors on visual perceptual quotient.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 120 spastic cerebral palsy children with equal numbers of strabismal/non-strabismal disorder (age 8-10 years) were randomly selected from exceptional schools of educational departments and rehabilitation clinics of Tehran and were evaluated with the test of visual perceptual skill-revised (TVPS-R).

Results: The results showed that the scores of visual perceptual quotient (P<0.0001) and visual perceptual age were significantly different among 8 to 10 years old children (P<0.0001). There was no significant difference in visual perceptual quotient between two sexes (P=0.76) and that non-strabismal children had greater visual perceptual quotient compared to strabismal one (P<0.0001).

Conclusion: It can be concluded that age and strabismus have a significant effect on visual perceptual quotient, while this is not the case on sex.

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Background: Motor impairment is considered as one of the main features of autism and Asperger syndrome. The aim of this study was to investigate the explicit motor-sequence learning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its consolidation after 24 hours.

Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial study, 15 boys with ASD and 16 matched healthy controls were selected using the autism spectrum screening questionnaire among the elementary schools in Najafabad (Isfahan, Iran). Participants in both groups performed the serial reaction time task in 10 blocks at the first day and 2 blocks after 24 hours.

Results: The mean and standard deviation of explicit learning speed through 8 regular blocks in the first day was 1.5±0.405 in the ASD group and 1.14±0.29 in healthy controls. There was a significant difference in the explicit learning speed between the two groups which indicated an explicit learning deficit in the ASD group (P=0.009). Moreover, there was a significant difference between the two groups for explicit learning speed mean in the first and second days of the experiment (ASD: 1.295±0.31 healthy controls: 1.06±0.21, P=0.046) suggesting a defect in consolidation of the explicit motor-sequence learning in the ASD group.

Conclusion: Defect in the explicit motor-sequence learning and its consolidation in the ASD group may be due to the left hemisphere dysfunction, which is specialized for explicit motor learning, and confirms the motor impairments in individuals with ASD.

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Background: Epilepsy is one of the most prevalent brain disorders affecting 0.5-1% of people in different societies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of coping skills training on reducing stress in patients with epilepsy.

Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial study, 60 patients with epilepsy were selected randomly from a list of the members of Isfahan Epilepsy Association in the second half of 2011. The participants were divided into the experimental and control groups (n=30 in each group). The training and practice of stress management were conducted one two - hour session per week for eight weeks . Before and after the training and practice, Lazarus-Folkman coping questionnaire and Depression, Anxiety, Stress scale (DASS) were completed for both groups.

Results: The results showed that 60% and 53% of the cases were women in the experimental and control groups, respectively. The age of most respondents in the experimental (36.7%) and control (30%) groups was in the range of 18-24 years. Results revealed that coping skills training can reduce tension in patients with epilepsy (P<0.01). Moreover, coping skills training significantly affected all subscales of coping strategies scores except for avoidance, self-control and responsibility.

Conclusion: Findings showed that coping skills training can be recommended as an add-on treatment plan in patients suffering from epilepsy.

 

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Background: Down's syndrome is one of the most common genetic disorders characterized by generalized muscular hypotonia and deficits in motor skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of perceptual motor exercises on perceptual motor function and drawing skills of children with Down's syndrome.

Materials and Methods: This clinical trial was conducted using an available sample based on single-system design (AB design). The participants in this study were evaluated twice a week in the baseline phase. After core stability assessment, they were trained with perceptual motor exercise in the treatment phase for 1.5 months every 3 sessions per week for 60 minutes. To investigate the changes in baseline and treatment phases, the C statistic and Bayesian analysis were used.

Results: The obtained results revealed that perceptual motor exercises had a moderate to strong effect on perceptual motor function in only one of the participants and had a weak effect on drawing skills in two of the participants, very strong effect in two of the participants and moderate effect in one of the participant and also these exercises had a very strong effect on visual motor coordination in four participants and strong to very strong effect in one of them.

Conclusion: The findings show that perceptual motor exercises can be an effective intervention to improve visual-motor coordination and subsequently drawing skills in children with Down's syndrome.

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Abstract
Introduction Schizophrenia is a chronic and debilitating disorder in which communication skills are severely impaired. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of supportive therapy and illness management on communication skills of schizophrenic patients.
Methods: This quasi-experimental study was performed with a post-test pretest design with a control group. The sample consisted of 30 patients with schizophrenia who were randomly selected from among patients with schizophrenia admitted to Shafa Hospital in Rasht in 2019 and were divided into 3 groups of 10 (two experimental groups and one control group). The communication skills questionnaire and Christie Forsyth (1996) interactive questionnaire before and after the training were used to collect data. Supportive therapy and illness management were performed in groups on each of the experimental groups and during this period the control group did not receive any intervention. Research data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis and Uman-Witni tests
Results: The results showed that supportive therapy and illness management had an effect on increasing communication skills. But there was no difference between the effectiveness of supportive therapy and illness management in communication skills (P <0.01).
Conclusions: These findings indicate that supportive therapy and illness management can be used to improve the quality of life of schizophrenic patients along with other treatments or in combination.