A study of phenomenology of panic disorder & assessment of severity & comorbidity of panic disorder.

Background : Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia is one of the common anxiety disorder. Panic disorder patient seeking medical help with different presenting complains & many patients also suffer from other anxiety / psychiatric or substance use disorders. Objectives: Study sociodemographic characteristics, phenomenology, and assessment of co morbidity and severity of Panic disorder. Material & methods : This is a cross sectional study conducted using DSM-IV-TR criteria for the Panic disorder. Then the patients with the diagnosis of Panic disorder were subjected to 7-item Panic Disorder severity scale (PDSS) for assessing the severity of panic disorder. Evaluated clinically for having agoraphobia or not. Particular attention was paid to check whether patients having any co morbid psychiatric illness. Result : Majority of patients 65% were female, 52.5% were in age group of 15-24 years & mean age of patients was 23.82 years . Mean age of onset of symptoms of Panic disorder was 21.3 years. Most common substance use tobacco in 30% of patients. Most common co morbidity was Major Depressive Disorder in 40% of patients. Agoraphobia was present in 24(60%) patients. Mean duration of PA was 22.37 minutes. 60% had PD moderate. symptoms pattern majority patients 67.5% had Cardio Vascular System (CVS) symptoms. Conclusion: Panic disorder commonly seen in age group 15 – 24 years . Commonly presenting symptoms are CVS related need caution to differentiate. High rate of co morbid substance use & psychiatric illness need attention in Panic disorder patients.

Adverse drug reaction monitoring in psychiatric outpatient department of a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Background:Pharmacovigilance in psychiatry units can play vital role in detecting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and alerting physician to such events, thereby protecting the user population from avoidable harm. Objective: To assess the suspected ADRs profile of psychotropic drugs in psychiatry OPD of a tertiary care hospital and its comparison with available literature data as well as to create awareness among the consultant psychiatrists to these ADRs profile. Materials and Methods: A prospective study was conducted in the psychiatry OPD. Thirty five consecutive patients per day were screened irrespective of their psychiatric diagnosis for suspected ADRs on 3 fixed days in a week from January 2011 to December 2011. CDSCO form was used to record the ADRs. Causality was assessed by WHO causality assessment scale while severity was assessed using Hartwig and Siegel scale. Results: Out of 4410 patients were screened, 383 patients were suspected of having at least one ADR. Thus, 8.68 % of our study population reported ADRs. Of 407 events recorded, 369(90.60%) were “probable” and rest “possible” according to WHO-UMC causality assessment scale. According to Hartwig and Siegel scale, 268 ADRs (65.85%) were “moderate” category. Twenty one different kinds of ADRs were noted. Conclusion: This study enables to obtain information on the incidence and frequency of ADRs in the local population that allows opportunity for education to the physicians to improve the patient’s quality of life.