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 Background & Objectives: Clinical findings show that stress can gradually affect the activity of various systems of the body such as immune system and impair them. Different variables potentiate and modify this effect. This research aimed at studying the relationship of personality traits (self-respect, tenacity, type A personality), stress, and stress coping skills with immune system status in nurses.

 Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 246 individuals were selected by simple random sampling method. At the first stage, the subjects on the job completed the questionnaires of self-respect, tenacity, type A personality, stress, and stress coping skills. At the second stage to determine the amount of antibodies, 2-cc blood of the subjects was assessed. The data were analyzed using correlational methods.

  Results: The findings indicated a significant, positive and meaningful relationship of immunoglobulin antibody with “self-respect”, and IgM antibody with “type A personality” in male nurses (p<0.05). But there was no significant relationship between the immune system variables and tenacity, stress, and stress coping skills. From among the predictive variables (self-respect, tenacity, type A personality, stress, and stress coping skills) only the stress variable had significant relationship with the criterion variable (IgA antibody)(p=0.05).

 Conclusion: Regarding the results it can be said that self-respect may adjust IgG variable in stress positions (especially in chronic stress). So in hard jobs such as nursing, psychological characteristics should be considered as an important job factor along with physical capabilities.

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Background & Objectives: Mental Health is a phenomenon which has been considered by psychologists, medical doctors and religious scholars and it is a combination of physical, social and cognitive factors. Due to the effectiveness of teaching coping skills in increasing mental health, this study was done to achieve the effect of teaching coping skills in providing mental health in students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences.       

Methods: Due to the nature and aims of the study, the study method was experimental research method. The samples of the present study comprised all male and female students (n=112) at Ardabil University of medical Sciences in 2006-2007 and gained 23 or more in GHQ-28 questionnaire (which evaluates four subscales of anxiety, depression, physical symptoms, and disorder of social functioning). At the next stage the samples (i.e. 80 female and male students) were selected randomly and divided in to two groups. Then, coping skills were taught to the experimental group for 4 weeks (two sessions in a week) and no variable was exposed to the control group during this period. At the end, the data from 62 (Dropt=18 case) individuals were analyzed by independent t test.   

Results: the results showed that teaching coping skills affects on decreasing mental disorders symptoms especially somatization of symptoms and anxiety of students suspected to the mental disorder (R< 0.001). But the teaching coping skills do not affect on decreasing depression and disorder of social functioning of students.

Conclusion: This study showed that teaching coping skills is a good method in decreasing mental disorders symptoms among the students suspected to the mental disorder. Therefore it is suggested that in order to prevent and decrease mental disorders symptoms, the coping skills should be taught to students.

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Background & Objectives: Serious reactions which normally is delayed and occur against serious stressor factors like natural disasters (for example: earth quake, flood and etc) and human made disasters (for example war, murder and etc) calls post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The aim of this study was Assessing the effectiveness of teaching problem solving skills in decreasing the symptoms of PTSD.

Methods:�The type of this research is experimental. After clinical assessment and selecting with clinical assessment these individuals showed PTSD symptoms through the results of both Mississippi scale and clinical appointment, in which there were 160 cases. The cases were separated to two groups of experimental and control. Through an experimental method, we studied and measured changes of their status before and after examination and only case group had been chosen for problem solving skills teaching. In order to analyze the results of the study, a T test and Variance analysis (ANOVA) were used.

Results: The results showed that 61.6 percent of population showed PTSD symptoms and there was no significant difference between male and female in level of PTSD symptoms. There was a  significant difference between, means level of PTSD in pre-test and post-test conditions, in addition there was no significant difference between levels of PTSD symptoms-decreasing, in female group after intervention, and male group. By comparing mean numbers of samples, in pre-test and post-test results of control and experiment groups in using problem-focused coping skills and decreasing emotion-focused coping skills, there was a significant differences. Also there was not any difference in using levels of coping methods, but indeed in amount of using emotion-focused coping method there was significant difference between male and female.

Conclusion: Presence of significant differences between pre-test and post-test results showed that training problem-solving-skills in decreasing PTSD symptoms is effective.