ABSTRACT
Introduction: The period of adolescence involves a lot of emotional changes as it is a period of transition to adulthood demanding independence.Adolescents with depression are more likely to have anxiety, disruptive behavior disorder and substance abuse when compared to those who are not depressed. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of depression among school going adolescents and to assess the factors associated with depression among them. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among school going adolescents aged 13-16 years in the urban field practice area of a Medical College. Depression was assessed using Beck's depression inventory (BDI). Total 896 adolescents were included in this study. Single stage cluster sampling method was done in which schools were considered as clusters and students constituted the sampling units. Schools were selected by simple random sampling technique using lottery method. Results: In this study about 45.2% of the adolescents had depressive disorder, out of which mild depression was reported among 22.2% students, 12.4% moderately depressed and 10.6% severe depression. Factors like mother's education, lack of communication by father and mother with their children, lack of needs satisfied by the fathers of the adolescents (61.9%), father's role in adolescents' life (62%) and domestic violence in family (69.7%) were some of the important reasons for developing depression among adolescents. Adolescent whose parents were having conflict (69.2%) were found be depressed when compared to those adolescents whose parents had no conflicts this difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of depression was found to be 45.2%. Finding of the study emphasizes the need for creating awareness about the early identification of behavioral changes leading to depression among adolescents by the parents and teachers. It is also important to emphasize to the parents on how their relationship and behavior towards the family affects the mental wellbeing of the adolescents.
ABSTRACT
Objective • To explore the reliability and validity of self-rated Family Burden Scale (FBS) evaluating caregiver burden in families of the patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). Methods • The study included female AN patients (n=103) treated in the Eating Disorder Center of Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from Jul. 2017 to Jul. 2019 and their caregivers (parents, n=148). General demographic information of the patients and their caregivers, the course of illness and body mass index (BMI) of patients, and the time each caregiver spent in caring for the patient per day were recorded. FBS, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the MOS item short form health survey (SF-36) were self-rated by the caregivers. One-third of the caregivers were selected by random number method for FBS rating by specialists. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by calculating Cronbach's α coefficient, self-rating and other-rating consistency and the consistency between husband and wife (41 couples). The validity of the scale was evaluated by calculating the correlation of FBS score with the course of disease, patients' BMI, the time spent in caring per day, scores of BAI and BDI, and vitality, social function, role-emotion and mental health domain of SF-36. Results • The Cronbach's α coefficient of FBS was 0.921, the correlation coefficient between self-rating and other-rating by specialists was 0.705 (P=0.000), and the correlation coefficient of consistency score between couples was 0.547 (P=0.000). FBS score showed no correlation with the course of disease, %BMI and the time spent in caring per day. Scores of BAI and BDI, and vitality, social function, role-emotion and mental health domain of SF-36 showed low correlation with FBS score (all P<0.05). Conclusion • Self-rated FBS shows good reliability when used in families of AN patients. The validity is not as ideal, which suggests further revision of the scale.
ABSTRACT
Background: Depression in adolescents often results in suicide, school drop-out, pregnancy, antisocial behavior, substance abuse, progressing in to adult depression functional disability and significant impairment. Depression in adolescents is an under recognized mental health problem. Methods: Cross-sectional study by using simple screening instrument Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) among school-going adolescents in urban Rohtak (Haryana). All the students of class 9th& 10th of 3 government schools were included. The data was collected on a predesigned, pre-tested, semi-structured, schedule by interview technique after obtaining informed consent from the concerned adolescents/principals of schools. Statistical analysis has been done with simple proportions and percentages using SPSS20. Results: A total of 374 adolescents participated in the study. More than half of study subjects were found to have scores corresponding to some degree of depression and nearly one in seven was suffering from moderate to severe depression. Conclusions: This study emphasizes the need for screening for depressive symptomatology and identifying adolescents who need further intervention.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To compare the patients of chronic low back pain with and without emotional depression in terms of psychosomatic aspect and clinical outcome by cross-sectional and prospective study. METHOD: We evaluated 100 patients who were admitted due to chronic low back pain. The patients were classified into three groups (moderately depressed, mild depressed, non-depressed) by the score of Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). And three groups were compared by Pain Disability Index (PDI), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Pain Rating Score (PRS) and special diagnostic studies such as MRI and EMG. All subjects took the same conservative treatments for 4 weeks and then, they were re-evaluated by PDI, VAS and PRS. RESULTS: BDI score was positively correlated with VAS and PRS significantly. All groups were not different with respect to functional limitation (measured by PDI) and organic lesion (measured by MRI and EMG study). But, subjective pain (measured by VAS, PRS) were severe in depressed group. All groups showed improvement in PDI, VAS and PRS after 4 weeks of treatment. But, the amount of improvement was greater in non-depressed group. CONCLUSION: The clinician treating chronic low back pain should be familiar with depression and prepare for screening on that.