Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among the attendees of a native faith healer at rawalpindi

This study was aimed at determining the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among attendees of native healers at shrines. One hundred and thirteen attendees were screened using GHQ-12, 56 of the probable cases were interviewed using a semi-structured format in the second stage. About 40% of the total attendees had a psychiatric diagnosis most common being depressive illness, psychosis and epilepsy. There were marked gender disparities in the diagnostic labels, with depression and dissociative disorders being more common in females and psychosis among the males. This study highlights the important role faith healers play in provision of mental health services, particularly in rural areas and there is need to carry out further studies to identify areas of collaboration between the formal mental health services and those being provided by faith healers for benefit of the communities

Impact of school mental health programme: attitudes about mental health among female school children

An observational study was carried out in three girls schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad to evaluate the impact of school mental health programme on the mental health related knowledge and attitudes of the pupils using an indigenously developed 20 item questionnaire. Thirty girl students of class eighth from each of the three schools were randomly selected for the study. The results show significantly better scores on items for mental health related knowledge and attitudes in school having an active mental health programme as compared to those without the programme, [mean scores 23.3, 17.00 and 18.2 respectively]. Exclusion of scores for four general health items resulted in further enhancing this difference [mean scores 21.9 and 14.06 and 16.18 respectively]. The results show that exposure to the school mental health programme leads to a positive change in the knowledge and attitudes of students about mental health issues in the government run rural school compared to a government run rural and privately run urban school having no exposure to such a programme. There is a need to initiate school mental health progammes to bring about a positive change in the perceptions of the community about mental health issues with children being the agents of change

Validation of general health questionnaire in a primary care setting of Pakistan

A study was conducted in a primary care setting to validate the General Health Questionnaire [GHQ 12]. The study had a two-stage design. During stage 1, all patients attending primary care facilities were given GHQ 12. All those scoring above two, and one in ten of those scoring below two, were given the second stage diagnostic instrument psychiatric assessment schedule [PAS], GHQ 12 had a sensitivity of 93% and specificity 88%

Detection of depression medical in patients using depression scale

This study was designed assess the validity of depression scale in a sample of 115 general medical inpatients of a teaching hospital. The initial interview was conducted by medical students using the depression scale; this was followed by second stage semi-structured diagnostic interview by a psychiatrist. Standard validity coefficients of the scales detection of DSM-III-R major depressive episode were measured. The depression scale had a sensitivity of 83% with a specificity of 72%. Depression scale raised the physicians, level of detection of depressive episode from 44% to 100%. It is concluded that use of the scale substantially improved detection of depression in patients admitted in a general medical ward. The scale was also useful in facilitating teaching of medical students