Vulnerability factors for depression in Pakistani women

The vulnerability factors were tested in a retrospective study on 50 cases and 50 controls. Only one of the four factors, i.e., lack of an intimate, confiding relationship, was found to be statistically significant, thus highlighting the need for indigenous research particularly in areas where the variables are socio-culturally determined

Alexithymia in Karachi

Alexithymia is a new term which usually means" no words for mood " and used to describe a disorder where patients have difficulty in expressing feelings in words. Such patients therefore express emotions in somatic terms. We have selected headache as a symptom to test the term Alexithymia. A group of thirty patients with the complaint of persistent headache of more than 6 months duration, without any organic pathology or neurological disease entity was taken. This study concludes that Alexithymic traits are not necessarily more prominent in those having psychophysiological symptoms specially tension headache. It also shows that we should not accept any new concept evolved in the west without testing it in our own conditions