Indian J Psychol Med, Official publication of Indian Psychiatric Society, South Zone

Background: Stress has touched almost all professions posing threat to mental and physical health. India being the Information Technology (IT) hub with lakhs involved as IT Professionals, there is a need to assess prevalence of professional stress, depression and problem alcohol use and understand their association. Objectives: (1) To screen for the prevalence of professional stress, risk for depression and harmful alcohol use among software engineers. (2) To study the association between professional stress, risk for depression and harmful alcohol use. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional online study conducted using screeing questionnaires like professional life stress scale, centre for epidemiological studies depression scale and alcohol use disorders identification test. This study was conducted specifically on professionals working in an IT firm with the designation of a software engineer. Results: A total of 129 subjects participated in the study. 51.2% of the study sample was found to be professionally stressed at the time of the interview. 43.4% of the study population were found to be at risk for developing depression. 68.2% of those who were professionally stressed were at risk for developing depression compared with only 17.5% of those who were not professionally stressed. Odds ratio revealed that subjects who were professionally stressed had 10 times higher risk for developing depression compared to those who were not professionally stressed. Subjects who were professionally stressed had 5.9 times higher prevalence of harmful alcohol use compared to those who were not professionally stressed. Subjects who were at risk for developing depression had 4.1 times higher prevalence of harmful alcohol use compared with those who were not at risk for developing depression. Conclusion: Such higher rates of professional stress, risk for developing depression and harmful alcohol use among software engineers could hinder the progress of IT development and also significantly increase the incidence of psychiatric disorders.

The under-or misdiagnosis, and symptomatic treatment of the panic disorder (PD), despite high prevalent medical illness, is common among non-psychiatric physicians. The non-psychiatrist physician’s role is vital in the care of PD as most patients initially approach general medical settings for medical help, including primary care. However, a significant proportion is undiagnosed and undergoes either unnecessary investigation, misdiagnosed, or mismanaged even among post-Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting patients, which profoundly affects the patients functioning and quality of life. This article aims to provide overviews of relevant epidemiological aspects, presenting features across medical specialties with respective diagnostic dilemmas, assessment, and management of the PD in their general medical settings, including emergency visits. Apart from psychiatrists, this will also assist non-psychiatrist physicians across all medical specialties, including general practitioners, to understand, identify, and provide the first line evidence-based pharmacotherapy and address the unmet need of patients with PD in their day-to-day busy clinical practice. This paper also provides a referral guide for non-psychiatrist physicians to refer to psychiatrists for further management after their first-line management.

Background: Suicide is a preventable cause of death, inspite of which its incidence is increasing worldwide. Very few studies are done to know the perception of suicide attempters regarding prevention of their suicide attempt. Such information may be helpful in implementing preventive strategies. This study was done to find out whether those who attempted suicide and recovered perceived that their suicide attempt could have been prevented or not. Materials and Methods: Fifty consecutive subjects were recruited by purposive sampling method. These subjects were admitted for suicide attempt and were stable after medical management. Subjects were assessed using socio-demographic and clinical proforma, Pierce suicide intent scale and structured questionnaire to assess their perception regarding suicide. Group differences for categorical variables were examined with the chi-square test, whereas an independent 't' test was used for continuous variables. Results: Analysis revealed that 80% of suicide attempters felt that their suicide attempt could have been prevented. 64% of the study subjects perceived that family members and near and dear ones could have helped in preventing their attempt while 16% of the study subjects perceived that society could have helped. Conclusions: Majority of subjects on recovery from the suicide attempt perceived that their suicide attempt could have been prevented by family members, near and dear ones and society.

Objective: Antipsychotics have revolutionized psychiatry by allowing significant numbers of patients in long-term hospital settings to be discharged and successfully maintained in the community. However, these medications are also associated with a range of adverse events ranging from mostly annoying to rarely dangerous. This study is carried out to identify the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to antipsychotics and its management in psychiatric patients. Methods: Prospective interventional study was conducted in the psychiatric unit of a tertiary care hospital. Patients of any age and either sex prescribed with at least one antipsychotic were included and monitored for ADRs. Findings: Among the 517 patients receiving antipsychotics, a total of 289 ADRs were identified from 217 patients at an overall incidence rate of 41.97%. Sixty-seven different kinds of ADRs were observed in the study patients. Central and peripheral nervous system was the most commonly affected system organ class (n = 59) and weight gain (n = 30) was the most commonly observed ADR. Olanzapine was most commonly implicated in reported ADRs (n = 92) followed by risperidone (n = 59). Of the 289 ADRs, 80% required interventions including cessation of drug and/or specific/symptomatic/nonpharmacological treatment. Conclusion: This post marketing surveillance study provides a representative data of the ADR profile of the antipsychotics likely to be encountered in psychiatric patients in an Indian tertiary care hospital.

Or identifying and defining such behavioural addictions and also lack of medical documents on pornography addiction. An applied strategy in lines with any substance addiction is used, and we found it helped our patient to gradually deaddict and then completely quit watching pornography. This is one of the few cases being reported scientifically, and we hope more work will be carried out in this ever increasing pornography addiction problem....