Industrial Psychiatry Journal最新文献

Background: The advancement in technology has given more people accessibility to internet and social media. Technological advances have led to the exponential rise of cybercrime, with an average of 7000 cases being reported in India every day in 2024. Given the potential harmful consequences, a thorough understanding of this phenomenon and the ways to address them is critically required.

Aim: To explore the lived experience of cyberviolence and online victimization.

Materials and methods: The sample comprised of 14 individuals aged 18-30 years, who were the target of cyberviolence, recruited through snowball sampling. Data was collected through a semi-structured interview schedule that was subjected to thematic analysis.

Results: The key characteristics of cyberviolence perpetration were found to be the anonymity and power of perpetrator, availability of wider audience, its continuous nature, greater accessibility to the cyber victims, the inability to escape, ease of committing the crime, and difficulty in gathering evidence. These enable the perpetrators to commit different types of cyberviolence, including cyberbullying, online sexual harassment, identity theft, catfishing, and cyber grooming.

Conclusion: The study sheds light on the rapidly emerging phenomenon of cyberviolence, operationalizes its definition, and outlines its key characteristics that likely act as facilitative factors for the perpetration of online violence.

Background: Suicide is a major global public health concern, particularly among individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). While depression is a well-known risk factor, not all patients with MDD attempt suicide, indicating the need to explore additional contributors such as impulsivity.

Aim: To assess the role of impulsivity in suicidal behavior among patients with MDD, comparing those with and without a history of suicide attempts.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study included 150 patients diagnosed with MDD at a tertiary care center, divided into two groups: those with (n = 73) and without (n = 77) suicide attempts. Psychiatric assessments included the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), Suicide Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R), and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11), which evaluates three domains of impulsivity: attentional, motor, and non-planning. Statistical analyses included Mann-Whitney U tests, Spearman's rank correlations, and Pearson's correlations.

Results: Patients with suicide attempts had significantly higher SBQ-R (mean = 12.38) and BIS-11 scores (mean = 85.03) compared to non-attempters (SBQ-R mean = 8.22; BIS-11 mean = 61.34; P < 0.001). No significant difference was found in depression severity (HAM-D scores). Among attempters, suicidality was strongly correlated with impulsivity (ρ = 0.423, P < 0.001) and moderately with depression (ρ = 0.336, P = 0.004). Attentional (r = 0.42, P = 0.001) and motor impulsivity (r = 0.31, P = 0.015) were significantly associated with suicide risk.

Conclusion: Impulsivity, particularly attentional and motor domains, is a significant independent predictor of suicide attempts in patients with MDD, beyond depression severity. Incorporating impulsivity assessment into routine psychiatric evaluations may enhance suicide risk prediction and inform targeted interventions.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition, often imposes significant psychological stress on parents. Identifying parental coping mechanisms is essential for addressing their needs and improving mental health.

Aim: To explore coping strategies and their impact on parental stress.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study involved 45 children diagnosed with ASD and their parents, all of whom were attending the Child and Adolescent Guidance Clinic at Tertiary care centre in Haryana. The severity of ASD in children was assessed using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). Parental stress levels were evaluated using the stress subscale of Hindi version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS). The Stress Coping Behaviour Scale (SCBS) was used to assess parental coping strategies.

Results: The results indicated that 58% of parents experienced mild stress, with mothers reporting significantly higher stress levels than fathers. A significant association was observed between the levels of parental stress and the types of coping strategies employed. Most parents predominantly used adaptive coping mechanisms such as active coping, emotional support, planning, acceptance, and religious practices, while maladaptive strategies were less commonly adopted.

Conclusion: The study reveals that parental stress levels positively correlate with maladaptive coping strategies and negatively correlated with adaptive ones. It addresses a research gap by exploring coping strategies among parents of children with ASD in India, a context largely overlooked in Western-focused studies.

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic psychiatric condition, often resistant to pharmacotherapy. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has emerged as a potential neuromodulatory treatment for resistant OCD. However, evidence regarding its efficacy in an Indian clinical setting remains limited.

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of adjunctive low-frequency rTMS applied over the right supplementary motor area (SMA) in patients with treatment-resistant OCD.

Materials and methods: A prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study was conducted at a tertiary care center. Thirty treatment-resistant OCD patients were recruited and randomized into active rTMS (n = 15) and sham rTMS (n = 15) groups. rTMS was administered at 1 Hz frequency, at 100% motor threshold, for two weeks, followed by a four-week gap, and another two-week session. Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) scores were assessed at baseline, posttreatment (two weeks), and follow-ups at six and eight weeks. A reduction of ≥25% in Y-BOCS score was considered a positive response.

Results: A total of 28 patients completed the study (active n = 13, sham n = 15). Baseline demographic and clinical variables were comparable. Mean Y-BOCS reduction at eight weeks was significantly higher in the active rTMS group compared to sham (P < 0.05). Active rTMS was well tolerated, with headache being the most common adverse effect.

Conclusion: Low-frequency rTMS over the SMA shows promise as an adjunctive treatment for resistant OCD. Further studies with larger samples and extended follow-up periods are warranted.

Background: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is recognized as a behavioral addiction with significant psychosocial implications, particularly among adolescents. While gaming behaviors have been widely studied, there is limited research on their sociodemographic and behavioral correlates in the Indian context, especially in northeastern regions.

Aim: This study aims to assess the prevalence of IGD and examine its sociodemographic and behavioral correlates among adolescents in northeastern India.

Materials and methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 538 students from five government higher secondary schools in Sonitpur, Assam. Of these, 314 gamers were included for analysis. Data were collected using a sociodemographic proforma and the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF). Logistic regression was employed to identify predictors of IGD.

Results: The majority of gamers were male (70.7%), aged 16-18 years (93.3%), and predominantly from rural backgrounds (77.1%). Gaming durations of 1-3 hours on weekdays (48.7%) and weekends (59.6%) were common. The prevalence of IGD was found to be 0.6%. Logistic regression identified prolonged gaming duration on weekdays (P = 0.019; 95% CI: 1.17-5.31) and weekends (P = 0.027, 95% CI: 1.12-5.94) as significant predictors of IGD. Parental monitoring emerged as a protective factor (P = 0.016, 95% CI: 0.20-0.88). Scholastic performance and sleep patterns were largely unaffected.

Conclusion: This study underscores the critical role of gaming duration and parental monitoring in IGD risk among Indian adolescents.

Background: Thematic apperception test (TAT) is a personality assessment measure widely applied in various clinical conditions. By analyzing written stories, clinicians can unveil the unconscious dynamics of the mind, including unconscious needs, presses, emotions, and ego defense mechanisms. Natural language processing (NLP) encompasses text feature extraction techniques, such as tokenization, stemming, lemmatization, and removal of stopwords. Recently, NLP-based methods have gained popularity among researchers for analyzing psychological attributes and predicting human behavior. As the TAT is one of the most extensively utilized projective psychological tests with many clinical applications, it is pertinent to explore the potential impact of NLP on its scoring process.

Aim: To assess if NLP-based algorithmic decision support can be used to accurately and precisely score across psychometric dimensions of TAT.

Materials and methods: An NLP-based algorithmic decision support system (NBADSS) was initially designed using the Python-based library "nltk." Subsequently, 87 healthy participants aged 17-40 years were selected using purposive sampling. Personal history and background information were collected from each participant before they underwent psychometric assessments using the TAT. The TAT protocols were manually analyzed and then analyzed with the help of NBADSS by another researcher. Lastly, the scoring procedures' findings were compared and statistically analyzed using Cohen's Kappa test and ROC curve analysis.

Results: The findings suggest that NBADSS is a valuable adjunct to quantifying TAT protocols objectively. NBADSS is found to be highly sensitive and specific in assessing needs, pressures, emotions, and defense mechanisms present in the stories.

Conclusion: NBADSS is an objective means of uncovering underlying intrapsychic conflicts projected through TAT stories.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is now being recognized as a complex illness with numerous behavioral symptoms in addition to the well-recognized motor symptoms such as tremors, rigidity, postural instability, and bradykinesia. Inhibitory control is one of the hallmark executive processes impaired in PD. Such deficits may severely affect the quality of life of patients and their caregivers. They may also result in impulsivity or lack of flexibility, arising as risk factors for developing impulse control disorders, which encompasses a wide range of behaviors such as compulsive gambling, buying, sexual behavior, and eating and related disorders.

Aim: The present study aims at understanding the behavioral symptoms in connection with inhibitory control in Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) and PD without dementia.

Materials and methods: For the current study, 12 individuals with cognitively unimpaired PD and 10 individuals with PDD were selected. Montreal Cognitive Assessment was used to screen cognitive impairment, and the Go-No-Go test assessed inhibitory control. A behavioral profile in connection with the inhibitory control was obtained for both groups. Further descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used to understand any significant difference between the groups concerning inhibitory control.

Results: The present study findings showed a significant difference in both groups regarding inhibitory control (P < 0.001). Apathy was the highly prevalent behavioral symptom in both groups, followed by agitation in cognitively unimpaired PD and irritability in those with PDD. In addition, increased sweet food preference, disinhibition, and stubbornness were also present in both groups.

Conclusion: Thus, this study will help understand the behavioral profile of patients with PD and PDD concerning inhibitory control. Thus, early detection of behavioral changes in PD can aid in timely prevention of future cognitive decline.

Misidentification syndromes have been described for a long time, but the major developments occurred in the 19^th and 29^th centuries. Many reviews have discussed the various aspects of delusional misidentification syndromes (DMSs). However, there is a lack of updated comprehensive review. This narrative review aims to review the historical aspects, classification, clinical aspects, epidemiology, etiological models, assessment, differential diagnosis, and management of DMS. Multiple internet searches were done to identify the literature on DMSs, and the literature was organized under different headings. DMSs are classified variously and are seen in patients with psychiatric disorders and in those with associated physical diseases, especially those involving the brain. The overall prevalence of DMS has varied from 5.2 to 81.6%. While evaluating DMS, it is important to distinguish it from disorientation, visual problems, memory problems, depersonalization and derealization, and dissociative disorder. There is little information about the management of DMS. DMSs are a rare phenomenon in patients with primary psychiatric disorders and organic conditions. Future studies must attempt to evaluate the efficacy of different antipsychotics in patients with DMS.