Assessment of Anxiety and Depression among Adult Population of Kashmir, India: A Cross-sectional Study.

Introduction: Mental health in Kashmir remains a concern and is threatening to become an ever-increasing epidemic. The changing social structure and the low-intensity armed conflict have become the basis of a deteriorating state of mental health among Kashmiris. In addition to this, the other factors are widespread poverty, uncertainty, grief, oppression, fear and high unemployment with limited employment generating sectors. Aim: To assess the depression, anxiety and mental distress among the adult population of Budgam district, Kashmir, India. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the community level in District Budgam, Jammu and Kashmir, India, from December 2019 to March 2020. Total three Investigators, one Senior Research Fellow (SRF) and two Junior Research Fellow (JRF) collected the data. The SRF was a Clinical Psychologist while the JRF were trained social workers. A door to door survey was conducted in the villages which were selected randomly from the list of the villages. The probability random sampling technique was used for the research purpose. Hopkins Symptoms Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) was used in the study and whereby after analysing the scores of the scale, results were derived. Chi-square and t-test were applied for statistical comparison. Results: Out of 133 individuals, 55 were males and 78 were females.The age of the sample ranged from 18 to 45 years, with a mean age of 37 years. Total 29.32% of the adults scored above the cut-off for anxiety symptoms and 34.58% scored above the cut-off for depressive symptoms, while 39% of these adults fall above the cut-off for mental distress scores.The validated cut-off score for the anxiety was 1.75 and for the depression was 1.57. Feeling tense, being worried, nervousness and low energy were reported as the symptoms of the mental distress among the people. Females, unemployed and individuals from lower socio-economic status reported higher degree of mental distress than others. Conclusion: Mental health issues in terms of anxiety, depression, and mental distress are found among the adult population in district Budgam. There was a significant mean difference in the mental distress levels concerning various socio-demographic variables. The study concluded that being female, having some medical condition, being unemployed, belonging to lower socio-economic status, belonging to nuclear family predict mental health distress.

Cardiovascular risk factors and major depressive disorder: a cross-sectional study in São Paulo, Brazil

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular risk factors can mediate the association between depression and cardiovascular diseases. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate cardiovascular risk factors in adult individuals with and without histories of major depression in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil. DESIGN AND SETTING: Cross-sectional study in São Paulo (SP), Brazil. METHODS: This study evaluated 423 individuals without any lifetime diagnosis of major depression and 203 individuals with a previous diagnosis of major depression (n = 626). The participants underwent a psychiatric evaluation using a structured clinical interview (SCID-1), an anthropometric evaluation and a clinical evaluation that included blood pressure measurement and assessment of fasting blood glucose, lipid profile and physical activity levels. RESULTS: Individuals with histories of major depression were more likely to be female (P < 0.0001). Individuals with lifetime diagnoses of major depression were more likely to be current smokers (odds ratio, OR 1.61; 95% confidence interval, CI 1.01-2.59) and to have diabetes (OR 1.79; 95% CI 1.01-3.21); and less likely to be obese (OR 0.58; 95% CI 0.35-0.94). CONCLUSION: Individuals with major depression had higher odds of presenting tobacco smoking and diabetes, and lower odds of being obese. Healthcare professionals need to be aware of this, so as to increase the rates of diagnosis and treatment in this population.

Attentional bias to emotional faces on individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression: an eye-tracking study / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To explore the attentional bias to emotional faces on individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression through eye-tracking study.Methods Center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (CES-D) and Hamilton depression scale (HAMD) were used to the diagnosis of 24 normal individuals and 21 depressed individuals and 24 individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression.Emotion face pictures were chosen as experiment material and discuss the mechanism of the attentional bias of individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression through the analysis of eye movement index.Results First fixation duration bias score on happy expression picture of individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression((52.60±0.06) ％) was less than normal controls ((59.26±0.09) ％) and the depression group((53.27±0.07)％),(F(1.66)=12.32,7.23,P＜0.05).Gaze Duration Bias score on sad expression picture of individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression ((59.17±0.08) ％) was more than normal controls((49.67±0.07) ％),(F(1.66) =4.29,P＜0.05).Conclusion Individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression show no original direction bias to sad and happy expression pictures.Original attentional avoidance and total attentional maintenance to sad expression picture exist in individuals in the remitted phase of recurrent depression.