Search results

The purpose of the study was to examine whether there were differences in the provision of non-pharmacological interventions based on the level of intellectual disability and the presence or absence of autism. Mental health conditions are often underdiagnosed in adults with intellectual disability and do not always receive psychological interventions as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellent guidelines. To realise the national UK programme’s aim of stopping the overuse of medications in people with intellectual disability, it is important that these individuals have access to appropriate non-pharmacological interventions. The authors examined the relationship between an individual’s level of intellectual disability and the presence or absence of autism with access to relevant non-pharmacological interventions from specialist community intellectual disability services.

A cross-sectional study of adults accessing four specialist intellectual disability services in North West England in 2019.

There was a high prevalence of mental health comorbidity, even higher for autistic adults. However, a relatively small percentage of the study population was receiving psychological interventions. The most frequent non-pharmacological intervention was a positive behaviour support plan, irrespective of comorbid mental illnesses.

Not having access to psychological interventions for the treatment of mental illness could result in poor health outcomes and increasing health inequalities. The study highlights the need for developing psychological interventions, particularly for those with moderate to severe intellectual disability and for those with associated autism.

This large sample study examined the relationship between intellectual disability level and the presence of autism with accessing psychological interventions.

The present study aims to assess the impact of narcissism, self-confidence and auditor's characteristics on audit report readability for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The study’s statistical population comprises firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The present research used a systematic elimination method, and 1,162 firm-year observations were obtained for seven years from 2012 to 2018. Three variables including auditor tenure, audit fee and audit specialization are used for measuring auditing features. The Fog index is used as a proxy for measuring audit report readability. In addition, in this paper, four regressions, including fixed effects, random effects, pooled and T+1, are used to estimate reliable coefficients.

The findings show a negative and significant relationship between auditor’s characteristics (tenure, fee and specialization) and audit report readability. Moreover, the variables of the auditor’s narcissism, self-confidence and mandatory auditor change have a positive and significant association with audit report readability. This study lends support to the theories of personality disorder and behavioral decision.

Since narcissism and self-confidence are two characteristics that shape an individual’s character and personality, some involved behavioral factors in auditors’ characteristics contribute to their decisions. The effects of these should be detected to enhance the decision-making process. The said factors significantly impact audit report readability. Hence, this paper attempts to assess the effect of the said factors on audit report readability.

Somatoform disorders are often the main cause for seeking professional advice and performing a number of specialist checks. The aim of the study was to determine the frequency of somatoform disorders in the form of headaches in children and adolescents neurologically diagnosed and the risk factors thereof. Analysis of the biological and situational risk factors were established. Somatoform disorders were diagnosed in 27 out of 276 children with headaches. We concluded that in the differential diagnosis of headaches, somato-form headaches should not be omitted as every 10th patient in the developmental age diag nosed on the neurological ward because of headache shows signs of somatoform heada -ches. In diagnostically difficult cases it is recommended that analysis of biological and situational risk factors be performed with special attention paid to chronic disease of the patient and/or in his immediate family, the patient's psychological disorders and dysfunctional or low social status families. The creation of separate criteria for somatoform disorders of the developmental age should be considered.

Mental disorders lead to difficulties in social, occupational and marital relations. Failure to detect mental disorder denies patients potentially effective treatment. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and nature of mental disorders at the primary care settings and the recognition of these disorders by the attending physicians. Over a period of eight weeks, consecutive and consenting patients who attended three randomly selected primary health care facilities in Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun state were recruited and administered a questionnaire that included a socio-demographic section and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). A total of 412 subjects took part in the study. Subject age ranged from 18-90 years with a mean age of 52.50±21.08 years. One hundred and seventy-six (42.7%) of the subjects were males. A total of 120 (29.1%) of the subjects had depressive disorder, 100 (24.3%) had anxiety disorder, 196 (47.6%) somatoform disorder and 104 (25.2%) met the criteria for an alcohol related problem. The PHC physicians were only able to diagnose disorders relating to mental health in 52 (12.6%) of the subjects. Health and work situations accounted for more than three-quarters of the causes of stress experienced by the subjects. We conclude that there is a high prevalence of mental disorders among patients seen in primary care settings and that a significant proportion of them are not recognized by the primary care physicians. Stress relating to health, work and financial problems is common among primary health care attendees. Physicians in primary health care should be alert to the possibility and the impact of undetected psychiatric morbidity.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder with lifetime prevalence of 7.8%, is characterized by symptoms that develop following exposure to traumatic life events and that cause an immediate experience of intense fear, helplessness or horror. PTSD is marked by recurrent nightmares typified by the recall of intrusive experiences and by extended disturbance throughout sleep. Individuals with PTSD respond poorly to drug treatments for insomnia. The disadvantages of drug treatment for insomnia underline the importance of non-pharmacological alternatives. Thus, the present study had three aims: first, to compare the efficiency of two relaxation techniques (muscular relaxation and progressive music relaxation) in alleviating insomnia among individuals with PTSD using both objective and subjective measures of sleep quality; second, to examine whether these two techniques have different effects on psychological indicators of PTSD, such as depression and anxiety; and finally, to examine how initial PTSD symptom severity and baseline emotional measures are related to the efficiency of these two relaxation methods. Thirteen PTSD patients with no other major psychiatric or neurological disorders participated in the study. The study comprised one seven-day running-in, no-treatment period, followed by two seven-day experimental periods. The treatments constituted either music relaxation or muscle relaxation techniques at desired bedtime. These treatments were randomly assigned. During each of these three experimental periods, subjects' sleep was continuously monitored with a wrist actigraph (Ambulatory Monitoring, Inc.), and subjects were asked to fill out several questionnaires concerned with a wide spectrum of issues, such as sleep, depression, and anxiety. Analyses revealed a significant increase in objective and subjective sleep efficiency and a significant reduction in depression level following music relaxation. Moreover, following music relaxation, a highly significant negative correlation was found between improvement in objective sleep efficiency and reduction in depression scale. The study‘s findings provide evidence that music relaxation at bedtime can be used as treatment for insomnia among individuals with PTSD.

Mental health is as important as physical health and new university entrants report high prevalence of depression. In open and distance learning (ODL), students must manage both work and studies. Those who are unable to effectively balance these aspects may experience negative outcomes such as dropping out, distress and physical health problems. Therefore, the study aims to investigate psychological distress amongst distance-learning undergraduate students to gather evidence for recommending necessary interventions.

A cross-sectional study was conducted using depression, anxiety, stress scale (DASS-21). Participants were undergraduate students from the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL). The students' socio-demographic details, history of physical and mental illnesses were also recorded.

According to scoring, 51% of the sample was categorised as “psychologically distressed” relating to the anxiety levels they reported whilst depression (35%) and stress remained (20%) at low levels. The three-factor structure of DASS-21 was also confirmed with reliability scores of 0.8 obtained for all three sub-scales.

The limitations were low-response rate (less than 50%) and inability to provide causal explanations for psychological distress. Further research could address these.

The current research identified anxiety as a psychologically distressing factor for ODL students with the use of a reliable screening tool. Therefore, exploring reasons and interventions to help reduce anxiety could be developed.

Majority of distance learners are contributing to a country's economy whilst learning to improve their current socio-economic status. Therefore, addressing these negative impacts is important.

The study explored ODL students' psychological distress and highlighted the need to identify causes and development of support systems to enhance mental well-being.

This paper aims to identify the risk factors that affect depression in students who sought psychological consultation during lockdown period in the health department at a university in Colombia.

The sample consisted of 33 students (12 men and 21 women) with a mean age of 21 ± 2.5 years during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Convenience sampling was used. The beck depression inventory-II instrument and a sociodemographic questionnaire were used to determine levels of depression and associated risk factors. A Google Form was designed with the respective instruments and sent along with the informed consent by email.

The results indicated that the population is characterized by presenting a level of mild (24.2%), moderate (15.2%) and severe (21.2%) depression. Concerning the levels of depression and risk factors, a significant difference was found with a history of violence (p-value = 0.000), mainly during childhood and adolescence, as well as objection to psychological therapy, belonging to a medium–high socioeconomic stratum, lack of family support and recent significant losses coupled with the lockdown because of the pandemic, which increased symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation.

This research was conducted using Google Forms, which meant that some questionnaires were incomplete. In addition, this study did not count with the full participation of patients who attended psychological consultation.

Universities should generate programs for early detection of risk factors and prevention of depression in students, which could affect academic performance, school dropout, interpersonal relationships and trigger suicidal ideation. These results can also be applied to reducing family violence, which has increased since the pandemic, by improving students' family dynamics.

Because of the scarce research on this topic in Latin America, this study contributes to mental health in this population. The university becomes a fundamental scenario in which the ability to help students develop an adequate expression of emotions, positive coping strategies and sense of life as protective factors against depression can be enhanced.