Impact of an Alcohol-based hand sanitizer usage during COVID-19 pandemic on disulfiram treatment: A South Indian psychiatrist's practice experiences

Background: Alcohol-based hand sanitizer (ABHS) usage has become one of the COVID-19 pandemic-related adapted responses. Some disulfiram-ethanol reactions are reported in people who use alcohol-based hand rub/sanitizer and take Disulfiram as a treatment for their alcohol use disorders. Aim & Objective: To determine the practice experiences of psychiatrists on disulfiram prescription to alcohol use disorder victims. Methodology: A cross-sectional study on the psychiatrists to find the experiences of disulfiram prescription to their clients with alcohol use disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Nearly 84 (51%) were reverted with a completed questionnaire. Among the respondents, 28 (33.3%) of the respondents decreased to prescribe Disulfiram, 48 (57.1%) reported that their patients stopped using ABHS due to fear of Disulfiram-Ethanol Reaction (DER), and 20 (23.8%) responders notified that their patients were expressed their worry on DER with Disulfiram and ABHS. Conclusion: Disulfiram prescribed for alcohol use disorders; treatment got peculiar experiences with the incidences of DER reported with Alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Many practitioners were scared to prescribe disulfiram due to DER with ABHS. The prevailing evidence that there is no possibility of cutaneous application of ABHS producing enough significant DER. Hence using ABHS is not a contraindication for disulfiram prescription.

Impact of Playing Violent Video Games Among School Going Children

Introduction: Children who play violent video games can become violent and aggressive. An aggressive emotional change in their behavior and deviation in academic performance is usually noticed. Aim: To assess the impact of violent video games playing among school going adolescents. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among a random sample of 400 adolescents recruited from four selected English medium schools of a City of Northern India by convenient sampling. Each student was interviewed by using a self-structured questionnaire which covered demographics, video gaming behaviors, and effects of video game playing on adolescents. Statistical Analysis: Collected data were entered in Microsoft Excel and subjected to suitable statistical tests. Results: 83.75% of the participants play video games while 1/3rd preferred to play violent games. 72.24% of the parents did not monitor the video game content of their children. Both boys (58.56%) and girls (17.12%) got aggressive during parent’s interference while playing violent video games. Most of the male (62.07%) were willing to apply actions of violent video games in real life. About 63.21% male violent video gamers showed poor academic performance as compared to girls (33.33%). Conclusion: Adolescents and their parents should be updated about the negative impact of excessive video game playing on health and psychosocial functioning.