ABSTRACT | PDF

EDITORIAL

OJPAS® this issue

Shyamanta Das¹, Samrat Singh Bhandari², Mythili Hazarika³

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Gauhati Medical College Hospital, Guwahati, Assam, India, ²Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences, Sikkim Manipal University, Gangtok, Sikkim, India, ³Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Gauhati Medical College Hospital, Guwahati, Assam, India

Abstract

The editorial highlights the articles of the current issue.

Keywords: Augmentative and alternative communication. Entomophagy. Coprophagy. Family burden. Cognitive behavioural therapy. Stigma. Discrimination. Nursing students. Clinical psychiatry. Public psychiatry.

Correspondence: Shyamanta Das, MD, 3A, Sundarpur main lane, RGB Road, Guwahati-781005, Assam, India. dr.shyamantadas@gmail.com

Received: 1 February 2022

Revised: 14 February 2022

Accepted: 28 February 2022

Epub: 1 March 2022

DOI: 10.5958/2394-2061.2022.00008.8

The January-June 2022, Volume 13 Issue 1 of the Open Journal of Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (OJPAS®) contains eight articles, including this editorial.[1] There is one opinion paper.[2] There are three original papers; two them are research articles[3,4] and one brief research communication.[5] There are two case studies.[6,7] There is one letter to editor.[8]

Intellectual developmental disorder is associated with communicative deficits. “Semantics, receptive and expressive syntax and morphology, speech production and pragmatics” are some of them. These speech and language disabilities are assisted by augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). In the letter to editor, Himanshu Verma, Harisha Madishetty, and Gourishanker Patil[8] “have discussed a client with moderate intellectual disability who presented with limited expressive language,” enrolled in the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities, Southern Regional Center (AYJNISHD[D], SRC), Manovikas Nagar, Secunderabad, Telangana, India. “The client attended 12 sessions of therapy with the frequency of one session per week.”

In the case study, titled “Entomophagy and coprophagy in alcohol use disorder: a rare psychopathology,” Purushottam Jangid, Aparna Goyal, Anirudh Bhushan, and Sujata Sethi[7] from Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India “considered the possible aetiological hypotheses like pica, oral fixation, thiamine deficiency, and role of amygdala” justifying “the variations in psychopathology, especially the uncommon presentations are worth exploring.”

Sunila Rathee, Vinay Kumar, Bhupendra Singh, Priti Singh, and Rajiv Gupta[3] from Institute of Mental Health, Pt. BD Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India, in their original paper (research article) “concludes that alcohol dependence adversely affects the patients as well as their caregivers.” In India, patients, including those with alcohol dependence are cared primarily by family. There were moderate to severe level of burden in personal, social, and psychological domains of care. Rural location with low-income families showed high burden.

“While cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has strong evidence for the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders, its applicability to schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders have posed a challenge.” In a case study, Pritha Roy and Susmita Halder[6] “attempts to highlight the role of brief CBT in the management of a patient with a diagnosis of schizophrenia with symptoms of hallucinations and delusions.” Brief CBT of eight sessions results in improvement.

“To assess stigma and discrimination faced by doctors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and their psychological wellbeing, a cross-sectional study was conducted on doctors” by Srikrishna Nukala, Archana Vinnakota, Venkata Abhilash Garapati, Srinivas Singisetti, Shvetha Chilukuri, Vidya Sanapala, and Lakshmana Rao Nambaru,[5] and their work is published as original paper (brief research communication). Stigma and discrimination are faced by majority of doctors. To fight this pandemic, it is pertinent to address “stigma and discrimination faced by doctors and other frontline healthcare workers.”

“Nursing students’ perception and attitude about illnesses play a major role in providing healthcare for suffering patients.” Hence, Chandraprakash Poornima, Beesanahalli Shanmukhappa Sachin, Anjana Krishna Kumar, Ipsita Debata, and Vedalaveni Chowdappa Suresh[4] “attempted to identify whether there is a significant difference in the attitude towards mental illness and chronic medical conditions (diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis).” This original paper (research article) concludes that “the general attitude of nursing students towards mental illness and chronic medical conditions (diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis) were comparable. Further studies need to focus on the various aspects of stigma/attitude towards mental illnesses among nursing students.”

In the opinion paper, titled “Conceptual framework of psychiatric care in India: moving from community psychiatry to public psychiatry,” Barikar C Malathesh, Narayana Manjunatha, Channaveerachari Naveen Kumar, Suresh Bada Math, and Jagadisha Thirthalli[2] “propose to abandon the concept of community psychiatry and classifying psychiatric care into two broader divisions: clinical psychiatry and public psychiatry. Clinical psychiatry is divided into hierarchy-based primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary care psychiatry. In contrast, public psychiatry is to be divided into non-hierarchy-based community/ local level (micro), district level (meso), state/ country (macro), and global level (mega). The proposed divisions should be kept in mind for framing the future policies on psychiatric care in India because ‘The change is the rule of the world’ – The Bhagavad Geeta.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr. Linda Cottler and the FOGARTY team. INDO-US program in chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) #D43 TW009120 (M Hazarika, Fellow). India-US Fogarty Training in Chronic Non-Communicable Disorders & Diseases Across Lifespan Grant # 1D43TW009120 (SS Bhandari, Fellow; LB Cottler, PI).

REFERENCES

1. Das S, Bhandari SS, Hazarika M. OJPAS® this issue. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2022 Mar 1. Epub ahead of print.
2. Malathesh BC, Manjunatha N, Kumar CN, Math SB, Thirthalli J. Conceptual framework of psychiatric care in India: moving from community psychiatry to public psychiatry. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2022 Jan 31. Epub ahead of print.
3. Rathee S, Kumar V, Singh B, Singh P, Gupta R. Family burden among caregivers of alcohol dependence: a cross-sectional study. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2021 Jul 20. Epub ahead of print.
4. Poornima C, Sachin BS, Krishna Kumar A, Debata I, Suresh VC. Evaluation of attitude and regard towards mental illness in comparison with chronic medical conditions among final year nursing students. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2022 Jan 29. Epub ahead of print.
5. Nukala S, Vinnakota A, Garapati VA, Singisetti S, Chilukuri S, Sanapala V, et al. COVID-19-related stigma towards doctors in India: an online cross-sectional study. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2022 Jan 29. Epub ahead of print.
6. Roy P, Halder S. Efficacy of brief cognitive behavioural intervention for the treatment of psychosis: a case report. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2021 Aug 7. Epub ahead of print.
7. Jangid P, Goyal A, Bhushan A, Sethi S. Entomophagy and coprophagy in alcohol use disorder: a rare psychopathology. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2021 May 20. Epub ahead of print.
8. Verma H, Madishetty H, Patil G. Our experience with implementation of manual augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) in adult with intellectual disability: a story of success. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2021 May 19. Epub ahead of print.

Das S, Bhandari SS, Hazarika M. OJPAS® this issue. Open J Psychiatry Allied Sci. 2022;13:1-2. doi: 10.5958/2394-2061.2022.00008.8. Epub 2022 Mar 1.

Source of support: Nil. Declaration of interest: None.