ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: Adolescence is a crucial phase of one’s life, given the physical andpsychological changes that occur during this phase. Number of adolescent suicides are on rise and a largenumber of adolescents report higher suicidal ideations during this phase. Suicide ideation involves thoughtsand cognitions about suicidal behavior. It involves thoughts related to desire, intent or method of committingsuicide. Research on suicide ideation has established strong links between depression and hopelessness withsuicidal thoughts and tendencies. Depressed adolescents are reported to be highly vulnerable to developsuicide ideations. In addition to depression and hopelessness, familial variables like support from parentsand emotional bonding with them is detrimental to such outcomes like suicide ideation. The present studythus aims to find depression, hopelessness, emotional autonomy and hardiness as predictors of suicideideation in adolescents.Methods: A sample of 400 adolescents (242 = Females and 158 = Males) in the age group of 15 – 22 (MeanAge = 18.36 years) years was taken. Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Personal ViewsSurvey, Emotional Autonomy Scale and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation were used to collect the data. Thedata so obtained for the predictor variables was first factor analysed so as to obtain independent factors.Results: Results revealed single factor with high factor loadings on all the four predictor variables. The factorscores from this factor were further used in linear regression in order to predict suicide ideation inadolescents. Regression analysis revealed that the factor was a significant predictor of suicide ideation. Theobtained results have been elucidated.Conclusion: There is a very high prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among interns working inMaharashtra which needs to be effectively dealt with on an urgent basis. The strong association of theprevalence of psychological illnesses with many factors and stressors faced by them will help us highlightthe contributory factors and suggest strategies to deal with them effectively at a personal, institutional andnational level.
ABSTRACT
Background: Geriatric mental health is a neglected domain of mental health and many cases remainundetected in the community. Community programs have often helped to detect many cases of the elderlywith psychiatric problems and help them access care. The current paper aims to present an analysis ofpatients seen in a geriatric health camp from a psychiatric perspective.Methods: 103 elderly attended the geriatric camp and were assessed clinically for psychiatric problems. Theywere also administered the Adenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R) Hindi version, Barthel’sIndex for Activities of Daily Living and 3.Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test (H-S/EAST). Theresults were analyzed statistically and presented.Results: The mean age of the subjects in the study was 66.05 ± 7.9 years. 83 subjects (79%) out of the 105were female. The mean BIADL score of the sample was 19.52 ± 1.9 and on the basis of scores on the ACER they were classified as having cognitive impairment (n=67) and not having cognitive impairment (n=27).The cognitively impaired group differed from the non-cognitive impairment on all subscales of the ACE-R.55 (52.4%) reported the presence of elder abuse but had taken no action against it. The BIADL scores showeda significant correlation on all aspects of ACE-R scores.Conclusions: Geriatric health camps can serve as a useful arena for the detection of geriatric mental healthproblems. Further studies in larger populations are needed to corroborate the findings seen in the geriatrichealth camp reported in this study