ABSTRACT
Introduction: Studies have demonstrated that adultschizophrenia patients have lower vitamin D levels comparedto the general population. Although there is a high prevalenceof vitamin D deficiency in India, there is a scarcity in studiesevaluating the role of vitamin D in schizophrenia. In this studywe compared the levels of vitamin D of 50 schizophreniapatients with that of 50 age matched controls.Material and methods: This study was conducted on patientsattending the outpatient and inpatient wings of department ofpsychiatry of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Kochi, Kerala.This case control study was conducted from October 2012 toOctober 2014. The vitamin D levels of 50 (cases) patientsdiagnosed to have schizophrenia as per the InternationalClassification of Disease, 10th revision; DiagnosticCriteria for Research (ICD-10-DCR) were comparedto 50 age matched controls. The vitamin D levels wereestimated from the venous blood samples by using ABBOTARCHITECT i.Results: In the present study among the patients diagnosedto have schizophrenia, 48% (24) had Vitamin D deficiencyand in the control group 26% (13) had it. The difference wasstatistically significant (p-value <0.001).Conclusions: In this study the serum vitamin D levels aresignificantly lower in schizophrenia patients than in thecontrols. Further studies with larger random samples ofschizophrenia patients are required to establish the result ofthis study
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Relapse is a common problem faced whenalcohol dependence is treated. The present study was doneto find the influence of extrinsic factors such as stressful lifeevents, peer pressure and perceived social support on relapsein alcohol dependence, which will be useful to developeffective interventions to prevent it.Material and methods: This cross sectional study conductedin tertiary care teaching hospital in Kottayam, included 60subjects who were grouped into 30 Late Relapsers (whorelapsed drinking after 3 months of abstinence) and 30Early Relapsers-(who relapsed drinking within 3 months ofabstinence). Mini-Mental Status Examination, DiagnosticCriteria for Research for ICD-10 (DCR-10) and the StressfulLife Inventory were used for each patient to collect theirdetails.Results: The mean age of onset of alcohol use of EarlyRelapsers was lower than that of the Late Relapsers. Alsothe number of stressful life events related to work, marriage,family and finance were more in the Early Relapsers comparedto the other and the difference was statistically significant forthe above mentioned factors.Conclusions: Early age of onset of alcohol use and occurrenceof stressful life events in 6 months preceding the relapse areassociated with relapse in alcohol dependence. Communitybased studies with larger sample size are needed to substantiatethe results of this study