The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 mutants, waning immunity, and breakthrough infections prompted the use of booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to fight against the pandemic. India started booster doses in January 2022 and it is critical to determine the intention of booster dose uptake and its correlates. Therefore, the current cross-sectional study aimed to investigate booster dose acceptability and associated predictors among the Indian population. A convenience sampling technique was utilized to recruit a sample of 687 Indian residents. A 55-item psychometric validated survey tool was used to assess booster dose acceptability, vaccine literacy and vaccine confidence. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical methods were used to analyze the data. Over 50% of participants reported their willingness to take the booster dose. Among the group not willing to take the booster dose (n = 303, 44.1%), a significantly larger proportion of respondents were unvaccinated with the primary series (12.2% vs. 5.2%, p < 0.001), had an annual income below 2.96 lacs/annum (52.8% vs. 33.1, p < 0.001), were residents of rural areas (38.0% vs. 23.2%, p < 0.001), were not living with vulnerable individuals (78.5% vs. 65.2%, p < 0.001) and did not have family/friends who had tested positive for COVID-19 (54.6% vs. 35.1%, p = 0.001). Demographic, vaccine variables and multi-theory model subscales to predict the initiation of booster dose among hesitant participants were statistically significant, R₂ = 0.561, F (26, 244) = 11.978, p < 0.001; adjusted R₂ = 0.514. Findings of this study highlight the need to develop evidence-based interventions to promote vaccine uptake, particularly among hard-to-reach communities living in developing countries.

Ample work has already been conducted on worry and rumination as negative thought processes involved in the etiology of most of the anxiety and mood related disorders. However, minimal effort has been exerted to investigate whether one type of negative thought process can make way for another type of negative thought process, and if so, how it subsequently results in experiencing a host of symptoms reflective of one or the other type of psychological distress. Therefore, the present study was taken up to investigate whether rumination mediates the relationship between worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and between worry and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in two clinical groups. Self-report questionnaires tapping worry, rumination, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) were administered to a clinical sample of 60 patients aged 30–40. Worry, rumination, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) correlated substantially with each other, however, rumination did not mediate the relationship between worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and between worry and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). We also analyzed differences of outcome variables within two clinical groups. These results showed that worry and rumination were significantly different between GAD and OCD groups.

Psychological distress is widespread globally, affects both mental and physical health, and has been significantly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reliable and valid instruments to assess psychological distress are needed so that interventions to address this condition can be directed and evaluated. We evaluated the psychometric statistics of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) using the Rasch method and a population survey sample dataset from four nations. To meet the requirements of the Rasch model, we randomly selected 500 participants (at least 110 from each country) from a total sample of 1822 individuals from Germany (n = 475), Ghana (n = 523), India (n = 411), and New Zealand (n = 413). Minor testlet modifications were necessary to achieve a satisfactory model fit for the depression (χ² (30) = 40.32, p = 0.099), anxiety (χ² (32) = 31.22, p = 0.510), and stress (χ² (20) = 29.64, p = 0.076) subscales, and the full-scale (χ² (18) = 23.93, p = 0.16). The scales were strictly unidimensional with acceptable reliability reflected by Person Separation Index (PSI) values of 0.86 for depression, 0.74 for anxiety, 0.82 for stress, and 0.87 for the total scale. The scales' items showed invariance across the countries and sociodemographic factors. The scales also demonstrated convergent, structural, and external validities. The study supported the reliability and validity of the DASS-21 for assessing psychological distress in four countries. Rasch model algorithms developed in this study enable conversion of the ordinal DASS-21 scale and its subscale scores to interval-level scores, which increases the precision of measurement. Future studies should apply Rasch methodology to the DASS-21 in various cultural contexts, incorporating subgroup analyses.