Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the most comprehensive set of standards promoting and protecting children’s interests. It can be utilized to create appropriate policies and legislation that enshrine the values identified in the UNCRC. In India, children have been considered only in the context of their family and were welfare recipients in the past, but more legislation has been enacted to protect and promote the child’s rights. A comparative review will help identify how the new legislation enacted after India ratified the UNCRC directly or indirectly addressed children’s mental health.

Legislation enacted after 1992 with the search term “child” was identified in the Indian national portal for legislation. These were compared against specific articles of the UNCRC identified to have a direct or indirect bearing on children’s mental health.

The review revealed that only 11 of the 32 legislation enacted after 1992 address different aspects of children’s mental health. Only three refer to the UNCRC in their preamble or content. Six of the 11 legislation addressed Article 24, while Article 32 and Article 34 were addressed in only one legislation each. Notably, most of the legislation is focused on child protection, while very few address the participation component of the guiding principles.

The UNCRC is a valuable guide to creating a legal framework to support child rights. This review highlights the need to consider children’s mental health as a fundamental right and incorporate the principles into future Indian legislation.

Suicide is common among persons with physical disabilities as they face several physical, social, psychological, and economic problems. They are at risk for suicidal thoughts, behaviors, and death by suicide. We aimed to systematically review empirically published articles and identify the associated factors of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in persons with physical disabilities.

A systematic search was carried out on the literature published from January 1, 2000 to January 19, 2023 in PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Shodh Ganga, and so on. All the synonyms of keywords or MeSH terms for suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and physical disability were used. Two hundred thirty-six articles were found, and after following inclusion and exclusion criteria, 12 remained.

The associated factors of suicidal behavior were disability status (11/12 studies), burdensomeness (8/12 studies), felt stigma (4/12 studies), depressive symptoms (6/12 studies), loneliness (2/12 studies), lack of social and emotional connectedness (2/12 studies), long-term physical or mental disability (2/12 studies), congenital disability (1/12 studies), and aggression (1/12 studies).

Timely, evidence-based, low-cost interventions can provide great assistance and address the specific needs of this vulnerable population as they have higher risk for suicidal behavior.

Nomophobia is a situational phobia evoked by unavailability of smart phone or the thought of the possibility of not having it, not being able to use it and losing it. Currently used instruments for assessment of severity of nomophobia offers challenges of administration and have limited applicability in the Indian setting. Therefore, this study was aimed to depict and understand the lived experience of college students with nomophobia and making sense of it.

This interpretative phenomenological analysis research design study was carried out on 17 undergraduate students belonging to different academic streams including Science, Social science and Commerce from the three study sites situated in different locations of India. An in-depth interview guide was prepared. The students who scored more than 90 on nomophobia questionnaire (NMP-Q Questionnaire) were included in the study. The data was recorded in audio and video format, it was transcribed, and translated from Hindi to English language. Coding was done and the theme were extracted.

The findings identified six superordinate themes: Digital Obsession, Digital Compulsion, Approval Motivation, Digital Intensement, Digital Well-being and Insight.

The lived experiences of the students with nomophobia had explicitly shown a strong inclination towards the smartphone. They also focused on some of the significant aids provided by the smartphone. Further the intensive use of the smartphone was posing major challenges to the students when they were away from it.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a concern in psychiatric patients. We aimed to study the influence of the modifiable lifestyle factors on MetS in adult psychiatric patients along with associated clinical factors and quality of life.

Factors such as diet (Healthy Eating Index), exercise, substance use, cardiovascular risk (QRISK), illness severity (Clinical Global Impression), medications, adverse events (Systematic Monitoring of Adverse Events Related to Treatments), and quality of life (Recovering Quality of Life Scale) were assessed along with clinical components for MetS in 323 psychiatric patients receiving routine care and monitoring in a Community Mental Health Team.

MetS was present in 50.5% (95% CI: 45.0–55.9). It was significantly associated with higher age, duration of mental illness, body mass index (BMI), QTc, QRISK, and antipsychotic drugs. In logistic regression, age, QTc, QRISK, and BMI remained significantly linked to MetS. Patients with or without MetS were comparable in their lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and substance use, along with the family history of metabolic disorders, age at onset of mental illness, duration of antipsychotic medication, side effects, psychiatric diagnoses, and quality of life. However, many patients with or without MetS had poorer diet and physical inactivity, indicating scope for interventions.

Around half of the psychiatric patients had MetS, and modifiable lifestyle factors did not differentiate individuals with or without MetS. The need for further research on the prevention and management of MetS in psychiatric patients is highlighted.

Anorexia nervosa is one of the least studied mental health conditions in the Indian setting. The objective of this study was to assess the course and outcome of anorexia nervosa in adolescents who had presented to a tertiary care child and adolescent psychiatry center over a period of 10 years.

The present study is a retrospective chart review of adolescents (up to the age of 18 years) with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, coded as F50.0 or F50.1 according to ICD 10, from 1^st April 2009 to 31^st March 2019. Data were extracted from the case records using standardized abstraction forms and evaluated using descriptive and nonparametric statistics.

The average age at presentation and the average age at onset were 14.1 years and 13.1 years, respectively. The male-to-female ratio of the sample who got admitted was 1:9. The average duration of hospital stay was about 30 days. The duration of in-patient care and weight gain were positively correlated, with severe to extremely ill adolescents improving even in less than one month of in-patient care. Seventy per cent of the admitted adolescents followed up. The functional outcome as measured by a ‘return to school’ improved in 57.1% of the sample.

The present study highlights the collaborative multidisciplinary and individualized treatment approach employed for adolescents diagnosed with anorexia nervosa within an inpatient mental health facility in India. Adolescents who presented with more severe illness at the initial assessment, such as an early onset of symptoms and a low BMI, experienced substantial weight gain that exhibited a positive correlation with the length of their stay in the inpatient facility.

About 10% of Indians have common mental disorders (CMDs) which include depression and anxiety. These disorders are common in women, which not only impacts on their quality of life but also their family members. The objective of the study was to estimate the prevalence of CMDs, and factors associated with them among women residing in coastal Karnataka.

A cross-sectional study was carried out among 980 women aged between 18 and 60 years from 2019 to 2021. Women were administered a baseline questionnaire along with Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalised Anxiety Disorder questionnaire-7 (GAD-7) and Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4). Data were collected using Epi-info and were analysed using SPSS version 15.0. Association between CMDs and socio-demographic, reproductive health and behavioural factors were expressed as crude and adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

The prevalence of CMDs among women was 5.7%, with 4.6% having depression and 3.37% with anxiety disorders. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that residing in urban areas (OR = 2.15; 95% CI:1.10–4.17), having a chronic illness (OR = 2.38; 95% CI:1.14–4.97), history of recent bereavement in the family (OR = 2.20; 95% CI:1.02–4.75), early marriage (OR = 2.63; 95% CI:1.09–6.33), history of abortion (OR = 2.89; 95% CI:1.42–5.92), and exposure to domestic violence (OR = 3.08; 95% CI:1.14–8.33) were significantly correlated with CMDs in this sample.

The study revealed that CMDs were prevalent among the surveyed women, which calls for routine screening of women for CMDs in primary care settings for early identification and appropriate interventions.

The transitional state between normal aging and dementia is known as Cognitive impairment (CI) where a person has memory complaints and objective evidence of CI but no evidence of dementia. With the globe undergoing a “demographic transition,” the magnitude of neurodegenerative disorders is rising. In India, 27.3% of older persons with comorbidities had CI. Early identification of CI will likely help initiate proper remedial intervention, leading to better overall outcomes. In order to determine the prevalence of CI in older persons and whether it is associated with co-morbid conditions, this study was designed.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 350 older adults aged ≥60 residing in rural areas of Lucknow, selected using multistage cluster sampling. The Hindi Mental State Examination (HMSE) scale was used to assess cognitive function. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect information on sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidity status.

Among 350 participants, with mean ± SD age 70.66 ± 9.53 years, the prevalence of CI as per HMSE (<23) was 24.9%. Overall, the mean HMSE score was less in individuals with (25.2) than without (27.19) comorbidities. Those with comorbidities had significantly lower mean scores in all individual domains of HMSE.

CI affects one-fourth of the older adult population. Risk increases with the presence of comorbidities. Hence, screening, and early treatment are recommended.