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The purpose of this paper was to gain a qualitative view of the participant experience of using home-based transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Acceptability impacts patient preference, treatment adherence and outcomes. However, acceptability is usually assessed by rates of attrition, while multifaceted constructs are not reflected or given meaningful interpretations. tDCS is a novel non-invasive brain stimulation that is a potential treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). Most studies have provided tDCS in a research centre. As tDCS is portable, the authors developed a home-based treatment protocol that was associated with clinical improvements that were maintained in the long term.

The authors examined the acceptability of home-based tDCS treatment in MDD through questionnaires and individual interviews at three timepoints: baseline, at a six-week course of treatment, and at six-month follow-up. Twenty-six participants (19 women) with MDD in a current depressive episode of at least moderate severity were enrolled. tDCS was provided in a bifrontal montage with real-time remote supervision by video conference at each session. A thematic analysis was conducted of the individual interviews.

Thematic analysis revealed four main themes: effectiveness, side effects, time commitment and support, feeling held and contained. The themes reflected the high acceptability of tDCS treatment, whereas the theme of feeling contained might be specific to this protocol.

Qualitative analysis methods and individual interviews generated novel insights into the acceptability of tDCS as a potential treatment for MDD. Feelings of containment might be specific to the present protocol, which consisted of real-time supervision at each session. Meaningful interpretation can provide context to a complex construct, which will aid in understanding and clinical applications.

The Companies Act of 2013 stressed upon gender diversity in the board of management considering the significant role of women toward the success of an organization. Following it, both public and private sector banks in India implemented the act from 2015 onward. This study aims to investigate whether its implementation has improved board gender diversity uniformly across public and private sector banks. Furthermore, the authors study the impact of board gender diversity on the performance of public and private sector banks in India.

Secondary data on listed Indian commercial banks for the period 2015–2021 have been used in this study that encompasses 15 commercial and 12 public sector banks. Return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q are considered as the banking performance indicators in this study, while gender diversity of the board is measured by using Blau index. Furthermore, generalized method of moments has been adopted to analyze the effect of board gender diversity on performance of the Indian banking sector.

Empirical results exhibit that board gender diversity has been gradually improving since 2015 in both public and private sector banks in India. However, board diversity in case of public sector banks is seen to be lower than that of private sector banks. Furthermore, this study found a significant impact of board diversity on the performance indicators of both public and private sector banks.

This study gives a clear picture that board diversity of both public and private banks has remained quite low over the years. Apparently, women representation has been found to be less than 50% throughout the period of 2015–2021. As board diversity has significant impact on banking performance, it is important on the part of banks to take proper steps to improve the board diversity.

This study has added to the existing literature by highlighting on the divergence between gender diversity across public and private sector banks in India. It emphasizes on the need to improve gender diversity by a significant increase in the proportion of women in the board to create an impact on decision-making.