Background: Call centre workers in BPO face unique occupational hazards - mental, physical and psychosocial. Material & Method: A sample 100 call centre workers of both sexes and from two cities Pune and Mumbai were surveyed by both qualitative and quantitative methods for the above health problems. Results: A high proportion of workers faced sleep disturbances and associated mental stress and anxiety. Sleep disturbance and anxiety was significantly more in international call centres compared to domestic. There was also disturbance in circadian rhythms due to night shift. Physical problems such as musculoskeletal disorders, obesity, eye, and hearing problems were also present. Psychosocial problems included disruption in family life, use of tobacco and alcohol, and faulty eating habits. Conclusion: Better personal management, health education and more research is indicated to study the health problems in this emerging occupation.

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Hypothesis testing is an important activity of empirical research and evidence-based medicine. A well worked up hypothesis is half the answer to the research question. For this, both knowledge of the subject derived from extensive review of the literature and working knowledge of basic statistical concepts are desirable. The present paper discusses the methods of working up a good hypothesis and statistical concepts of hypothesis testing.

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Background: The elderly population is large in general and growing due to advancement of health care education. These people are faced with numerous physical, psychological and social role changes that challenge their sense of self and capacity to live happily. Many people experience loneliness and depression in old age, either as a result of living alone or due to lack of close family ties and reduced connections with their culture of origin, which results in an inability to actively participate in the community activities. With advancing age, it is inevitable that people lose connection with their friendship networks and that they find it more difficult to initiate new friendships and to belong to new networks. The present study was conducted to investigate the relationships among depression, loneliness and sociability in elderly people. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out on 55 elderly people (both men and women). The tools used were Beck Depression Inventory, UCLA Loneliness Scale and Sociability Scale by Eysenck. Results: Results revealed a significant relationship between depression and loneliness. Conclusion: Most of the elderly people were found to be average in the dimension of sociability and preferred remaining engaged in social interactions. The implications of the study are discussed in the article.

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Alcohol withdrawal is commonly encountered in general hospital settings. It forms a major part of referrals received by a consultation-liaison psychiatrist. This article aims to review the evidence base for appropriate clinical management of the alcohol withdrawal syndrome. We searched Pubmed for articles published in English on pharmacological management of alcohol withdrawal in humans with no limit on the date of publication. Articles not relevant to clinical management were excluded based on the titles and abstract available. Full-text articles were obtained from this list and the cross-references. There were four meta-analyses, 9 systematic reviews, 26 review articles and other type of publications like textbooks. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a clinical diagnosis. It may vary in severity. Complicated alcohol withdrawal presents with hallucinations, seizures or delirium tremens. Benzodiazepines have the best evidence base in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal, followed by anticonvulsants. Clinical institutes withdrawal assessment-alcohol revised is useful with pitfalls in patients with medical comorbidities. Evidence favors an approach of symptom-monitored loading for severe withdrawals where an initial dose is guided by risk factors for complicated withdrawals and further dosing may be guided by withdrawal severity. Supportive care and use of vitamins is also discussed.

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Delusion has always been a central topic for psychiatric research with regard to etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and forensic relevance. The various theories and explanations for delusion formation are reviewed. The etiology, classification and management of delusions are briefly discussed. Recent advances in the field are reviewed.

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Research studies are usually carried out on sample of subjects rather than whole populations. The most challenging aspect of fieldwork is drawing a random sample from the target population to which the results of the study would be generalized. In actual practice, the task is so difficult that some sampling bias occurs in almost all studies to a lesser or greater degree. In order to assess the degree of this bias, the informed reader of medical literature should have some understanding of the population from which the sample was drawn. The ultimate decision on whether the results of a particular study can be generalized to a larger population depends on this understanding. The subsequent deliberations dwell on sampling strategies for different types of research and also a brief description of different sampling methods.

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Electroencephalography (EEG) provides an excellent medium to understand neurobiological dysregulation, with the potential to evaluate neurotransmission. Time-locked EEG activity or event-related potential (ERP) helps capture neural activity related to both sensory and cognitive processes. In this article, we attempt to present an overview of the different waveforms of ERP and the major findings in various psychiatric conditions.

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Background: There is a growing consensus about the validity of human personality traits as important dispositions toward feelings and behaviors (Matthews, Deary,& Whiteman, 2003). Materials and Methods: Here we examine the reliability of the Hindi translation of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Short Form (EPQR-S; Eysenck, Eysenck,& Barrett, 1985), which consists of 48 items that assess neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism, and lying. The questionnaire was first translated into Hindi and then back translated. Subsequently, it was administered to 202 students (78 men and 124 women) from Banaras Hindu University. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated. Results: The findings provide satisfactory psychometric properties of the extraversion, neuroticism and lie scales. The psychoticism scale, however, was found to be less satisfactory. Conclusion: It can be proposed that due to satisfactory internal consistency scores, the EPQRS-H is a reliable scale for the measurement of various personality traits.

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Background: 'Think-manager, think-male' stereotype had lived its age and the time is ripe to give way to a Psychologically Androgynous manager, who is more personally effective. Irrespective of one's sex, he/she possesses both the masculine as well as feminine attributes and practices them as the situation so desires. Material & Method : 350 male management students were categorized under three groups viz. Typically Sex-typed, Androgynous and Undifferentiated by using Bem's Sex-role Inventory (1974). Their Personal Effectiveness scores were obtained using Pareek's Personal Effectiveness Scale(2001). Mean, S.D., t-ratio and Pearson's Correlation was calculated. Results : Three groups were found to be significantly different in terms of their Personal Effectiveness. Psychologically Androgynous group was found to be most personally effective on the dimensions of self-disclosure, benefit from feedback & perceptiveness or sensitivity to others' feelings. Also, significant correlation existed between Psychological Androgyny and Personal Effectiveness vis-à-vis the other sex-role orientations. Conclusion : Androgynous sex-role orientation predicts personal effectiveness in management students.

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Background: Personality measuring instrument plays an important role in many fields of human civilization and therefore, present study was aimed to find such an instrument for Bengali speaking juniors. Materials and Methods: Bengali translation of the short-form of the revised junior Eysenck personality questionnaire developed by Corulla was administered on a sample of 226 Bengali speaking students (99 boys and 127 girls) studying in class seven and eight taken from two urban and two rural schools. Internal consistency of each item under a subscale was calculated; internal consistency of each of the four subscales of the translated questionnaire was calculated; test-retest reliability was found with an interval of 3 months and inter-correlations between different subscales were found. Conclusion: The findings provided satisfactory psychometric properties of the extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie scale.

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Amputation is a major health burden on the families, society, and on medical services as well. Traumatic limb amputation is a catastrophic injury and an irreversible act which is sudden and emotionally devastating for the victims. In addition, it causes inability to support self and the family and driving many patients toward various psychiatric disorders. Extensive information regarding the effects of amputation has not been ascertained and therefore it was decided to do a systematic review. The goal of this review was to provide comprehensive information of peer-reviewed papers examining the psychological distress among amputees in India. A search of the literature resulted in a total of 12 articles with varied sample size from 16 to 190. The sample has been largely comprised males with lower limb amputation caused by primarily traumatic ones, i.e., motor vehicle accident, railway track accidents, machinery injury, blasts, etc., The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among amputees has been found to be in the range of 32% to 84% including depression rates 10.4%–63%, posttraumatic stress disorder 3.3%–56.3%, and phantom limb phenomenon 14%–92%. Although the studies reported that symptoms of anxiety and depression become better over the course of time, however surgical treatment providers need to liaise with psychiatrists and psychologists to support and deal with the psychological disturbances.

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Background: Emotional stability remains the central theme in personality studies. The concept of stable emotional behavior at any level is that which reflects the fruits of normal emotional development. The study aims at development of an emotional stability scale. Materials and Methods: Based on available literature the components of emotional stability were identified and 250 items were developed, covering each component. Two-stage elimination of items was carried out, i.e. through judges' opinions and item analysis. Results: Fifty items with highest 't' values covering 5 dimensions of emotional stability viz pessimism vs. optimism, anxiety vs. calm, aggression vs. tolerance., dependence vs. autonomy., apathy vs. empathy were retained in the final scale. Reliability as checked by Cronbach's alpha was .81 and by split half method it was .79. Content validity and construct validity were checked. Norms are given in the form of cumulative percentages. Conclusion: Based on the psychometric principles a 50 item, self-administered 5 point Lickert type rating scale was developed for measurement of emotional stability.

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Background: Social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter are virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends and meet other people based on shared interests. An exponential rise in usage of Social Networking Sites have been seen within the last few years. Their ease of use and immediate gratification effect on users has changed the way people in general and students in particular spend their time. Young adults, particularly teenagers tended to be unaware of just how much time they really spent on social networking sites. Negative correlates of Social Networking Sites usage include the decrease in real life social community participation and academic achievement, as well as relationship problems, each of which may be indicative of potential addiction. Aims: the aim of the study was to find out whether teenagers, specially those living in cities spend too much time on social networking websites. Materials and Methods: 200 subjects, both boys and girls were included in the cross sectional study who were given a 20 item Young's internet addiction test modified for social networking sites. The responses were analyzed using chi square test and Fisher's exact test. Results: 24.74% of the students were having occasional or 'frequency' problems while 2.02% of them were experiencing severe problems due to excessive time spent using social networking sites. Conclusion: With the ever increasing popularity of social media, teenagers are devoting significant time to social networking on websites and are prone to get 'addicted' to such form of online social interaction.

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The literature on hallucinations is reviewed, including its occurrence in different psychiatric disorders, neurological disorders and normal persons. The diagnostic significance of hallucinations is also discussed. Reports of hallucinations in normal people are reviewed. The different modes of the management of hallucinations are briefly discussed.

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Background: Social development of children with mental retardation has implications for prognosis. The present study evaluated whether the social maturity scale alone can reflect on the social maturity, intellectual level and consequent adjustment in family and society of children with mental retardation. Materials and Methods: Thirty-five mentally retarded children were administered Vineland Social Maturity Scale and Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale. Results: It was found that there was significant relationship between the measures of social maturity scale and the IQ of the subjects. Further it was found that with increasing severity of retardation, social development also decreases and age does not have any effect on social development. Conclusion: Social quotient increases from profound to mild level of retardation.

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The literature on hallucinations is reviewed, including history; theoretical background from physiological, biochemical and psychological points of view; classification; causation; presentation in different psychiatric and neurological disorders and in normal persons. The available evidence suggests that hallucinations result from a failure of the metacognitive skills involved in discriminating between self-generated and external sources of information. Management of hallucinations is briefly discussed.

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Background - The present paper reports the development and psychometric evaluation of a Hindi version of the Positive-Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) originally developed in English by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988). The PANAS is widely used tool for assessment of positive and negative affect in clinical as well as non-clinical setting and has also been used as a differential diagnostic tool for distinguishing the clinical depression from anxiety. Material & Method - A Hindi version of the PANAS (PANAS-H) was developed using the contemporary psychometric standards for developing transliteral equivalents and cross-cultural adaptation of psychological tests/scales. In order to evaluate the psychometric properties, the PANAS-H was administered on a relatively heterogeneous sample of 179 participants. The obtained data was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis) which identified two theoretically significant orthogonal factors. The mood adjectives reflecting the positive affect loaded significantly on factor-1 whereas the affective lexicons representing the negative emotional engagement loaded significantly on factor-2. On the basis of this pattern of factor loading the first factor was labeled as 'Positive Affect' (PA) and the second factor as 'Negative Affect' (NA). Results : A significant but low negative correlation was observed between PA and NA which suggests that PA and NA are not independent of each other. Item analysis done for each subscales revealed that the Hindi affective lexicon used for tapping the dimensions of PA and NA are reliable and valid and form a homogeneous item-pool. Conclusion : The reliability of the PA and NA subscales as well as that of the whole scale was found to be highly satisfactory (0.804 for PA, 0.776 for NA, and 0.658 for full scale). Overall, the findings suggest that 1) the PANAS-H can reliably and validly measure the PA and NA of Hindi speaking individuals, and 2) the PANAS-H measures two distinct (PA and NA) but negatively related dimensions of affect.

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Self-mutilation, the deliberate destruction occurs in a variety of psychiatric disorders.Many methods of self-destructive behavior have been described in literature. Patients of schizophrenia are known to attempt self-harm due to command hallucination, catatonic excitement or because of associated depression, however severe glossal injury by biting has not been reported so far.Authors report case of self-harm of glossal injury by biting in schizophrenia.Treatment and management issues are discussed.

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Pediatric obesity is a major health problem and has reached epidemiological proportions today. The present paper reviews major psychological issues in pediatric obesity from a developmental perspective. Research and literature has shown that a number of developmental, family, maternal and child factors are responsible in the genesis of pediatric obesity. Family food habits, early developmental lifestyle of the child, parenting, early family relationships and harmony all contribute towards the growth and development of a child. The present review focuses on the role of developmental psychological factors in the pathogenesis of pediatric obesity and highlights the developmental factors that must be kept in mind when evaluating a case of pediatric obesity.

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Background: Three to nine per cent of teenagers meet the criteria for depression at any one time, and at the end of adolescence, as many as 20% of teenagers report a lifetime prevalence of depression. Usual care by primary care physicians fails to recognize 30-50% of depressed patients. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional one-time observational study using simple screening instruments for detecting early symptoms of depression in adolescents. Two psychological instruments were used: GHQ-12 and BDI. Also socio­demographic data (e.g. academic performance, marital harmony of parents, bullying in school, etc) was collected in a separate semi-structured performa. Statistical analysis was done with Fisher's Exact Test using SPSS17. Results: 15.2% of school-going adolescents were found to be having evidence of distress (GHQ-12 score e"14); 18.4% were depressed (BDI score e"12); 5.6% students were detected to have positive scores on both the instruments. Certain factors like parental fights, beating at home and inability to cope up with studies were found to be significantly (P <0.05) associated with higher GHQ-12 scores, indicating evidence of distress. Economic difficulty, physical punishment at school, teasing at school and parental fights were significantly (P <0.05) associated with higher BDI scores, indicating depression. Conclusion: The study highlights the common but ignored problem of depression in adolescence. We recommend that teachers and parents be made aware of this problem with the help of school counselors so that the depressed adolescent can be identified and helped rather than suffer silently.

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