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Suicide is a global mental health challenge and suicides frequently get a wide media coverage. The media reporting of suicide and subsequent suicides are closely associated. Studies reveal country wise variations in the quality of media reporting. We aimed to do a bibliometric analysis of the published research on media reporting of suicide. All the published articles available on the PubMed database from the time of inception till August 2021 were included in the study. All the PubMed IDs of the articles were entered in Harvard Catalyst, a free online software, for bibliometric analysis, and data were extracted and verified. A total of 158 published articles were identified. The average number of authors per article was 5.108 and the average number of times an article cited was 9.639 (excluding self-citation). The h-index of the published articles was 19. The Crisis journal published the maximum number of articles (n = 24). The highest number of average citations was for systematic reviews. Maximum articles were published in 2020 (n = 27). Suicide reporting in the media is an important subject of suicide research. However, original studies on this subject are few. Large-scale studies will contribute to the development of an evidence base for future recommendations and guidelines on this important subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study aimed to compare the comprehensive mental health facets of adolescents with the adults. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional design with 1,027 participants (456 adolescents; 347 young and 224 middle age adults). The Comprehensive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 self-rated Level 1 cross-cutting symptom measure, perceived stress scale, and brief COPE were used. Chi-square test of independence and spearman rank correlational analysis was performed. Results: 33.77% of adolescents, 25.65% of young adults, and 17.41% of middle-aged adults reported that their symptoms started during the pandemic. Adolescents reported higher depression, anxiety, suicidal ideations, anger, and somatic complaints. Significantly higher adolescent females (39.9%) were found to have sleep disturbances than their male counterparts (25.5%). The correlational analysis showed that most mental health domains, except substance use, showed moderate-to-low correlations with the "impact of COVID-19." Conclusion: This study observed that adolescents to be more clinically vulnerable in the domains of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideations, anger, and somatic complaints. Middle-aged adults should further be seen as a clinically vulnerable population for substance use during the new normal. This research indicates the need for further extensive research on assessment and management. Also, it provides a comprehensive analysis for clinical decision-making and policy development to combat the mental health problems in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of lockdown on sexual functioning in India. In addition, impact of lockdown on relationship with the partner and mental health was evaluated. Materials and Methods: An online survey was conducted using changes in sexual functioning questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-4, and a self-designed questionnaire. Results: The mean age of the participants was 41.5 (standard deviation: 11.2; range: 22--77; median: 39.5) years, with the majority being males 385 (85.6%). The participants reported that lockdown led to reduction in the frequency of sexual intercourse and also touching the partner (fondling, caressing, touching, or kissing) when not indulging in sexual intercourse. Majority of the participants reported improvement in the overall relationship, communication with the partner, and interpersonal conflicts. About two-fifths of the participants reported engaging in sexual intercourse more than twice a week or more. About one-fifth screened positive for psychiatric morbidity, with 14.2% screened positive for anxiety, 14.8% screened positive for depression and 8.7% screened positive for both. In both genders, presence of depression and anxiety were associated with lower sexual functioning in all the domains. Conclusion: Lockdown led to a reduction in the frequency of sexual intercourse, and reduction in the frequency of intimacy in the form of fondling, caressing, touching, or kissing partner when not doing sexual intercourse. However, lockdown led to the improvement in overall relationship and communication with the partners and a reduction in interpersonal conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current global health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, has posed an unprecedented challenge to our health systems, economy, socio-political organizations, and the infrastructure of most countries and the world. This pandemic has affected physical health as well as mental health adversely. Several recent evidence suggests that health systems across the world have to improve their preparedness in context to infectious pandemics. The research on mental health aspects of COVID-19 and other related pandemics is lacking due to obvious reasons. This narrative review article, along with our personal views, is on various current and future mental health issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on various challenges and suggested solutions. The aim is also to update mental health strategies in the context of such rapidly spreading contagious illness, which can act as a resource for such a situation, currently and in future. We recommend that there is a need to facilitate mental health research to understand the psychiatric aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, include psychiatrists in the task force, and make available psychotropic and other medications with special attention to the deprived sector of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a complete shut-down of the entire world and almost all the countries are presently in a "lockdown" mode. While the lockdown strategy is an essential step to curb the exponential rise of COVID-19 cases, the impact of the same on mental health is not well known. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the psychological impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on the general public with an objective to assess the prevalence of depression, anxiety, perceived stress, well-being, and other psychological issues. Materials and Methods: It was an online survey conducted under the aegis of the Indian Psychiatry Society. Using the Survey Monkey platform, a survey link was circulated using the Whatsapp. The survey questionnaire included perceived stress scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale to assess perceived stress, anxiety, depression, and mental well-being, respectively. The survey link was circulated starting from April 6, 2020 and was closed on April 24, 2020. Results: During the survey, a total of 1871 responses were collected, of which 1685 (90.05%) responses were analyzed. About two-fifth (38.2%) had anxiety and 10.5% of the participants had depression. Overall, 40.5% of the participants had either anxiety or depression. Moderate level of stress was reported by about three-fourth (74.1%) of the participants and 71.7% reported poor well-being. Conclusions: The present survey suggests that more than two-fifths of the people are experiencing common mental disorders, due to lockdown and the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic. This finding suggests that there is a need for expanding mental health services to everyone in the society during this pandemic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preventive psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that aims at health promotion, protection from specific mental illnesses, early diagnosis, effective treatment, disability limitation and rehabilitation. Prevention of neuropsychiatric illnesses as compared to other illnesses is particularly important as they run a chronic course and cause substantial disability. Preventive measures have been found to be effective in reducing incidence and disability in a wide range of mental illnesses such as depression, psychosis, anxiety and conduct disorders. The need of the hour is to translate advances in our understanding of mental illness into effective intervention programmes for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]