ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Ghorbani   S. (1 )
Kazemi Zahrani   H. (* )






(* ) Psychology Department, Human Sciences Faculty, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
(1 ) Clinical Psychology Department, Human Sciences Faculty, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Yas Clinic, No. 408. 4th Floor, Jahan-Nama Building, Darvazeh Dowlat, Isfahan, Iran. Postal Code: 81366-13689
Phone: +983142292720
Fax: +983132121261
kazemi_psyc@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  December  31, 2014
Accepted:  April 11, 2015
ePublished:  April 20, 2015

BRIEF TEXT


… [1] Post-traumatic stress disorder occurs as a combination of regular and frequent symptoms after experiencing or seeing a traumatic event [2]. … [3-11]

Memory is one of the psychological processes that plays a fundamental role in the development and maintenance of the disorder. One of the new therapies is metacognitive therapy [12]. Metacognitive treatment is one of the cognitive-behavioral therapies with an emphasis on the role of cognitive impairment or bias in thinking in the development and maintenance of emotional disorders. This study aims to investigate the effect of metacognitive interventions on the performance of working memory and verbal memory in patients with PTSD. … [13-15]

This study aims to investigate the effect of meta-cognitive interventions on the performance of working memory and verbal memory in patients with PTSD.

This is a quasi-experimental study.

The clients to counseling centers in Isfahan and Najafabad (Iran) were studied in 2014.

30 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were selected according to clinical interview and DSM-IV criteria.

This study included control and experimental groups with pretest and post-test. After the entry criteria, including a minimum level of elementary education, aged between 35 and 55years, no acute psychiatric disorders based on the clinical interview, no drug addiction at the study time and completion of the consent form to participate in therapy sessions, had been applied, the subjects entered the study. At the next stage, the subjects were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The research instruments were a demographic questionnaire and WMS-II and N-BACK tests. The treatment included eight 90-minute meta-cognitive treatment sessions hold one session a week. The meta-cognitive intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder was based on Wells’ treatment sessions [16]. AT first, in the pretest stage, the variables were measured in both groups and then, metacognitive intervention was conducted in experimental group, while control group received no intervention. Then, both groups received post-test. The collected data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) using SPSS 18 statistical software. … [17-24]

The participants were aged between 30 and 55years. In experimental group, there were 12 married and 3 single persons. And in control group, there were 10 married men and 5 single persons. In the post-test stage, there was a significant difference between control and experimental group in difficult verbal memory component and total scores of verbal memory. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference between control and experimental groups in simple verbal memory component. In addition, there was a significant difference between control and experimental group in overall score of first level of the working memory. However, there was no a significant difference between groups in the overall score of the second level of working memory test (Table 1).

The results of this research, showing the effectiveness of metacognitive interventions to improve the difficult verbal memory, are in line with other studies [4, 25]. … [26] Metacognitive therapy could improve working memory in patients with post-traumatic stress. The discussion was divided into four levels. Since the first and second levels of working memory is more associated with the process of attention, the results about the improvement of first level of working memory and reaction time are in line with the some studies [27-29]. The findings that did not confirm metacognitive intervention effectiveness on the improvement of the second level of working memory are in contrast to the aforementioned studies. However, they are in line with the some other studies [30, 31]. Based on S-REF model, it can be suggested that the traumatic experience leads to failure in emotional processes, showing the incidence of unresolved incompatibility in self-regulation. The incompatibility leads to inefficient cognitive responses, and therefore, studies on working memory in difficult tasks follow a contradictory pattern [32].

The effectiveness of the metacognitive intervention should be compared with other psychological interventions such as acceptance and commitment therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, medication, etc. Cognitive and emotional variables should be investigated.

This research was a cross-sectional study and data was collected at a particular time. Therefore, caution should be observed in generalizing the results. In this study, there were only male subjects and any generalization of the results to women should be done with caution.

Metacognitive therapy considerably copes with verbal and working memory problems in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. It can be considered in planning treatment for these patients.

The authors of this study appreciate all veterans who participated in this research.

Non-declared

Non-declared

This research was funded by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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