Behrang Shadloo

Tehran University of Medical Sciences | TUMS · Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS)

Background: The validity of self-reported methamphetamine use among treatment-seeking patients has been reported as inconsistent and therefore inconclusive. Objectives: To evaluate the validity of self-reported methamphetamine use versus urinalysis in patients with methamphetamine use disorder at a drug treatment center. Methods: In this cross-sect...

Background and ams Despite the evident public health impact, the extent and patterns of alcohol use in the Eastern Mediterranean countries remain understudied. The latest estimation for the last 12‐month use of alcohol in the region was 2.9% in 2016 by the World Health Organization. We reviewed the main indicators for alcohol consumption in the reg...

Background The extent of illicit drug use among university students necessitates effective preventive programs. To identify and assess the effectiveness of university-based interventions in preventing or reducing illicit drug use. Methods The MEDLINE (PubMed), SCOPUS, ISI (Web of Science), and other sources were searched according to the Cochrane...

Background Drug use, especially injecting drug use, is associated with a higher risk of tuberculosis (TB). This study aimed to systematically review the prevalence of TB among people who use drugs (PWUD) in Iran. Methods A systematic search was conducted in international and national databases. All studies that provided data on the prevalence of T...

Objective: Gaming motivations are a central aspect of playing video games, and their importance to understanding both healthy and problematic gaming behavior has been increasingly elucidated. In this study, we aimed to translate the 18-item Gaming Motivation Scale (GAMS-18) to Persian and validate it in a population of Persian speaking gamers, spe...

Background: Considerable disease burden is attributed to injecting drug use (IDU). This regional systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the prevalence of IDU and the characteristics of people who inject drugs in the 22 countries of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the...

Background: Assessment of the Quality of Life (QOL) is increasingly performed as an efficient method to assess the quality of care provided for patients with schizophrenia. Also, the QOL assessment performed by patients themselves is more affected by the symptoms of schizophrenia. Therefore, a mental health professional evaluation may provide more...

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of lifetime, last year, and last month use of illicit drugs (opioids, cannabis, stimulants, and hallucinogens) and associated factors among the first to fourth-year students at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Method: The sampling method was multi-stage cluster sampling. An...

Objective: Gaming motivations are crucial aspects of healthy and problematic video gaming behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the widely used Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ). Methods: Test-retest reliability was evaluated in a sample of 66 university students. Data from 791 participants in...

One in eight adults in Iran is estimated to have major depressive disorder (MDD) – a leading cause of disability in the country. Many remain undiagnosed, and some receive only partial treatment. An estimated 60% of those with MDD were reported to have received no treatment during the past year. In this paper, we have critically reviewed the current...

Background Comorbid alcohol and illicit drug use disorder is relatively prevalent . We aimed to assess the prevalence, pattern, and associated factors of alcohol use disorder among treatment-seeking individuals with drug use disorders in Iran. Methods This was a cross-sectional study, conducted on 387 male patients from residential drug treatment...

Background: Several factors may influence the validity of self-report. In this study, we aimed to assess the validity of self-reported drug use compared to urine testing among treatment-seeking patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 293 patients with OUD, referred to the Iranian National Center for...

Background There is a high prevalence of substance use disorders, especially among men, in Iran and is associated with a high burden on families. We aimed to systematically review the association between illicit drug use and spouse and child abuse in Iran. Method Comprehensive terms were used to search three international databases (ISI, Medline,...

Context: Self-immolation is defined as ending life by suicide, particularly through burning, which carries considerable morbidity and mortality. Although its prevalence is low in developed countries, in developing countries, it’s an important problem. Evidence Acquisition: We systematically searched studies published in international and local data...

Background: People who use drugs (PWUD) are considered as one of the main at-risk populations for Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We conducted a systematic review on the prevalence of HBV infection among PWUD in Iran. Methods: Consistent with PRISMA guideline, international (Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, and Embase) and national (Scientifi...

Aims: In Iran, injecting drug use has been the major route of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. In order to control the HIV epidemic, a harm reduction program was initiated and expanded in recent years. The aim of this study was to provide an updated estimate of HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Iran, investigat...

Background: Globally, HCV testing, linkage to care and treatment is sub-optimal among people who use drugs (PWUD). This study aimed to evaluate the impact of an innovative intervention to enhance HCV testing, linkage to care, and treatment initiation among PWUD in Tehran, Iran. Methods: ENHANCE is a non-randomized trial evaluating the effect of...

Considering the scarcity of available science and controversies around effective policies addressing gaming disorder and its health-related consequences, Király et al. have conducted a systematic review on current evidence regarding this issue. We, a group of researchers in this field, would like to express our perspective from Iran. With rapid gro...

Aims: Addiction science has made great progress in the past decades. We conducted a scientometric study in order to quantify the number of publications and the growth rate globally, regionally, and at country levels. Methods: In October 2015, we searched the Scopus database using the general keywords of addiction or drug-use disorders combined w...

Objectives The aims of the study were to translate into Persian and culturally adapt the Kessler Psychological Distress Scales, K10 and K6, and to assess their reliability and validity. Method The sample was recruited from primary health care (PHC) settings by quota nonprobability sampling, stratified by sex and age. Validity was assessed against...

Extended Abstract 1. Introduction Psychiatric disorders have a high prevalence and impose a huge burden to societies all over the world. Despite the recent trend to develop community-based psychiatry services, hospital-based services are still an inevitable part of treatment process, especially for patients in acute phases. Nowadays, interventions...

Background: HIV and psychiatric disorders are closely correlated and are accompanied by some similar risk factors. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess psychiatric comorbidity and health service utilization for mental problems among people living with HIV/AIDS in Iran. Methods: A total of 250 cases were randomly selected from a large...

There are ongoing controversies regarding the upcoming ICD-11 concept of gaming disorder. Recently, Aarseth et al. have put this diagnostic entity into scrutiny. Although we, a group of Iranian researchers and clinicians, acknowledge some of Aarseth et al.'s concerns, believe that the inclusion of gaming disorder in the upcoming ICD-11 would facili...

Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the second most commonly used illicit drugs in the world, after cannabis. The production of ATS has increased worldwide, including in the Middle East. This review aims to assess ATS use in the Islamic Republic of Iran. PubMed, Scientific Information Database (a national database) and Iranian Center for Addictio...

The aim of this study was to assess drop-out rates and associated reasons among patients at the Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS) clinic. In a one-year period (April 2014 to March 2015), all patients with drug dependence who had been referred for treatment and attended for a first assessment were included in this study (N=242)....

Introduction: Sturge-Weber Syndrome (SWS) is a rare neurocutaneous syndrome that is manifested by overt neurological and covert psychiatric features. Although the syndrome is known to be neurocutaneous, multiple organs and systems are involved. Case Presentation: A 45-year-old male, with type I SWS was admitted to the psychiatric ward with manic-li...

Background: Injuries and psychiatric disorders, notably both major public health concerns, are associated with a high burden and are believed to be bi-directionally correlated. Those inflicted with injuries face increased risks of mental illnesses. Psychiatric disorders may make the individual prone to injuries. The objective of the study was to a...

Breaking bad news is one of the most burdensome tasks physicians face in their everyday practice. It becomes even more challenging in the context of HIV + patients because of stigma and discrimination. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the quality of giving HIV seroconversion news according to SPIKES protocol. Numbers of 154 consecutive H...

HIV/AIDS is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in world. There are more than 35 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Although the annual incidence of HIV infection is decreasing globally, HIV prevalence is rising due to development of more effective treatment and higher survival. Iran suffers from concentrated HIV epid...

Background: Sleep disturbance is a common complaint in major depressive disorder (MDD) including impairment of both subjective and objective parameters, additionally selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that are among highly consumed antidepressant, affect sleep architecture (SA) as well. This randomized trial was designed to compare the...

Injection drug use, a behavior associated with significant adverse health effects, has been increasing over the past decade in Iran. This study aims to systematically review the epidemiological and qualitative evidence on factors that facilitate or protect the transition to injection drug use in Iran. We conducted electronic searches in five intern...

There has been a long-running debate speculating the differences between lefthanded and right-handed people in terms of their Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and cognitive capabilities. There is indeed an abundance of literature on correlation of cognitive abilities and handedness. On one hand there is strong evidence in favor of higher prevalence of le...

Japanese psychiatrists have increasingly reported patients with depression that does not seem to fit the criteria of the ICD-10 and the DSM-IV, and which has recently been called modern type depression (MTD). We explored whether MTD is frequently seen in Japan and also in other countries, and if so, how patients with MTD are diagnosed and treated....

To explore whether the 'hikikomori' syndrome (social withdrawal) described in Japan exists in other countries, and if so, how patients with the syndrome are diagnosed and treated. Two hikikomori case vignettes were sent to psychiatrists in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA. Participants rated the syndrom...

Objective: Poor premorbid adjustment has been reported to be a predictor of more severe psychotic symptoms and poor quality of life in such psychotic disorders as schizophrenia. However, most studies were performed on chronic schizophrenic patients, and proposed the likelihood of recall biases and the effect of chronicity. The aim of this study was...