A study on Perceived Threat, Behavior Change, Lockdown Compliance and Coping Strategies among Indian Adults amid COVID-19 outbreak

Introduction: During the current pandemic, threat perception of people during lockdown, any subsequent change in their behaviour , coping mechanisms along with lockdown compliance used to deal with the crisis in the Indian subcontinent have been important. The study aims to explore prevalence of perceived threat, behaviour change, lockdown compliance, and coping strategies amid COVID-19 outbreak in India. Methodology: This cross-sectional study used a semi-structured online questionnaire. Study applied non- probability snowball sampling technique for data collection. The survey questionnaire included four sections on (a) socio-demographic variables (b) perceived threat (c) lockdown compliance and behaviour change (d) coping strategies. Descriptive statistical analysis was done for the evaluation of data. Results: The responses of 1068 participants with a mean age of 32.92±12.88 years were included for analysis. Nearly half (51%) of the participants reported feeling 'very high' anxiety and about 34% reported to have 'high' anxiety about the spread of coronavirus, on the other hand many (41.6%) of them believed that they had very less chances of getting infected with coronavirus. A large population (89.3%) reported complying to the nationwide lockdown. The major coping mechanism being used by the people is distractions, socializing as well as adaptive coping mechanisms. Conclusion: In the current scenario, there is a concern for India, as due to surge in persons infected with COVID 19 and an indication towards 'optimism bias ' prevalent in people there are chances of poor compliance with government guidelines on behaviour change. The findings of the study will be helpful in designing programs and government measures for the people aimed at ensuring compliance with the guidelines related to social distancing and sanitization and using adaptive coping strategies

Severity and Dimensions of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Family Accommodation: OCD severity and Family Accommodation

Background and Objectives: Family accommodation (FA) refers to ways in which family members assistthe patient in the performance of rituals, compulsions, avoidance of anxiety provoking situations, ormodification of daily routines to assist a relative with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The purpose of thisstudy was to study the association between the family accommodation and dimensions of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD).Methods: The study was included 45patients and their family members, Yale brown Obsessive-Compulsivescale (YBOCS) was used to assess the severity of OCD in patients and Dimensional Yale brown ObsessiveCompulsive scale (DYBOCS) was used to identify the severity of different dimensions in OCD patientsfamily members were assessed on Family Accommodation Scale for Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder – SelfRated version (FAS-SR) for understanding accommodation level in family. A Pearson’s correlationcoefficient was used to evaluate the association between variables.Results: FA was found to be highly present in the family of patients with OCD. On the DYBOCS we foundthe dimension of cleaning and washing were prevalent and highly correlated with FA.Conclusion: The findings suggested that the family accommodation is very common in families of OCDpatients and strongly associated with symptom severity of few specific dimensions.

A Study of Psychiatric Comorbidity in Opioid Dependence.

Aim: To assess psychiatric comorbidity in patients of opioid dependence Method: All the patients of opioid dependence attending alcohol and drug deaddiction OPD and adult psychiatry OPD on specific days, were screened. Those fulfilling the selection criteria were included in the study. A detailed evaluation was done for socio-demographic variables and history of drug using semi-structured proforma especially prepared for the study. Diagnosis of opioid dependence was made according to DSM-IV-TR criteria. The patients were seen for co-morbid psychiatric illness by applying Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR I & II (SCID I & II). Results: Out of 25 patients 19 (76.0) were found to have comorbid psychiatric illness. Axis I and Axis II comorbidity was found in 76% and 20% of the samples, respectively. Patients of cluster B personality were dominating in the sample. Patients with more than one comorbidity accounted for 60% of the sample. Conclusion: Psychiatric comorbidity in opioid dependence are very high, other substance in particular. Number of comorbid diagnoses in a person may as high as four.