Suicide and family constellation in India.

The article first outlines historical suicide patterns. Case histories mirror a wide range of frustrations and family tensions in our present generation and show the socioeconomic, sociophilosophical, and cultural changes that are sweeping Indian society and are greatly adding to the tensions in life, resulting in a substantially higher occurrence of suicide. Varieties of family patterns are described that predispose an individual to suicidal behavior. It has been stressed that the single most important variable in the development of suicidal behavior remains the family unit.

Effect of prolonged deprivation on attributional style.

The effects of prolonged deprivation and outcome on attributional style were examined in a 2 x 2 factorial design with two levels of deprivation (high and low) and two levels of outcome (good and bad). Indian subjects (N = 80) were selected on the basis of extreme scores on a prolonged deprivation scale; they provided an attributional style scale of good and bad outcome situations. High-deprived subjects attributed bad outcomes to more internal, stable, and global causes compared with low-deprived subjects. In addition, high-deprived subjects showed internal attributions of a stable and global type for both bad and good outcomes.

Eating disorders among Indian and Australian university students.

In a study of eating disorders, 297 Australian and 249 Indian university students completed the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26; Garner, Olmsted, Bohr, & Garfinkel, 1982) and the Goldfarb Fear of Fat Scale (GFFS; Goldfarb, Dykens, & Gerrard, 1985). Contrary to predictions, the Indian participants scored significantly higher than the Australian participants on both measures. The Indian women scored significantly higher than the Australian women on the EAT-26 but not on the GFFS. The Australian men showed significantly fewer symptoms than all other groups. The Indian men did not differ from the Australian or Indian women on either the EAT-26 or GFFS. The urban Indians did not differ from their rural counterparts on the GFFS, but the rural Indians had significantly higher EAT-26 scores than the urban Indians.

Marital adjustment and subjective well-being in Indian-educated housewives and working women.

We compared marital adjustment and subjective well-being in Indian-educated housewives (N = 200) and working women (N = 200) who were administered a Marital Adjustment Questionnaire (Kumar & Rastogi, 1976) and 10 measures of subjective well-being (Warr, 1984). Results indicated significantly better marital adjustment and subjective well-being for the working women than for the housewives. Specifically, working women reported higher scores on general health, life satisfaction, and self-esteem measures and lower scores on hopelessness, insecurity, and anxiety, compared with the housewives, although the housewives had lower scores on negative affect than the working women. Findings were insignificant on positive affect and depression.

Body image, hopelessness and personality dimensions in lower limb amputees.

A sample of lower limb amputees and equal number of matched surgical controls was studied on body image, hopelessness and personality dimensions using Fisher's Body Distortion Questionnaire (BDQ). Beck's Hopelessness Scale and Hindi PEN Inventory. Amputees had significantly higher mean scores on body distortion (x 27.86), hopelessness (x 14.08) and neuroticism (x 9.30) as compared to surgical controls. Furthermore they had significantly lesser scores on extraversion (x 11.26) in comparison to their surgical counterparts. No significant differences were found on psychoticism in the two groups. Psychological aspects of amputation have not received much attention. By and large, amputees are believed to have more difficulty in dealing with people than things. It is the loss of ability to relate psychologically, socially, sexually and vocationally that inhibits the amputees most.

Mental morbidity in industrial workers of khetri copper complex.

There is dearth of researches pertaining to prevalence of mental morbidity in Industrial setups, particularly in our country.They are important as psychological ill health of workers may adversely effect the productivity in developing country like India.Khetri Copper Complex in Rajasthan was selected for present study. Aims were to determine the period prevalence of mental morbidity among workers and role of sociodemographic, psychological variables in such disorders. 330 workers were randomly selected from various departments. Each worker was given specially designed proforma and Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire. Workers scoring 12 or more were given "A standardised psychiatric interview schedule" suspected cases were examined by senior consultants to assign them diagnostic categories (I.C.D.-9).Period Prevalence in this study was 186.66/1000. As regards diagnostic categories, 75% were neurotic and 12.5% psychotics. Role of socio demographic, psychological and psychiatric variables in the development of these disorders has been discussed.Findings of this study are in expected direction and results obtained can be easily explained in terms of formulations given by other researchers in this field.Recommendation and plans for further research are discussed.

Role of stressful life events in mania.

The study investigated the role of stressful life events and family pathology in manic illness-selecting 30 cases of mania from Psychiatric Centre Jaipur and 30 normal controls from paramedical staff of psychiatric hospital. Both manics and normals were matched in terms of age, sex, education, marital status etc. All the subjects were subjected to Paykel's life events questionnaire, and an intensive psychiatric interview. Results revealed the significance of life stresses and family pathology in the genesis of mania. Death of close relative, financial difficulties, death of spouse, disappointment due to defeat in election, turned out to be major life events in contribution of manic pathology.

Psychological determinants of depression in old age.

The present study investigated the role of recent life events and other psychological factors relating to alienation, hopelessness, personality dimensions and religiosity in patients with first episode of depression in old age. A sample of 50 subjects who had first episode of depression at or after the age of 50 were selected from Psychiatric Centre, Jaipur along with a matched sample of 50 normal controls. They were subjected to different psychological scales viz. socio economic status, life events, alienation, hopelessness, religiosity and P.E.N. Inventory. Results of the study disclosed that life event relating to financial problems, occured with greatest frequency in old age depression as compared to normal controls. As regards to marital status, widowed were more in depressed group (30%) as compared to control group (8%). Furthermore, patients with old age depression had significantly more alienation, hopelessness, neuroticism and psychoticism as compared to their normal counterparts. They scored significantly lesser on Extroversion than the controls. No significant differences were seen in the two groups with respect to attitude toward religion. No effect of domicile was observed on different psychological variables. Significance of these findings is discussed.

Influence of stressful life events and coping strategies in depression.

The influence of stressful life events and coping strategies was studied in 50 depressed and 50 non-depressed persons. It was observed that depressives experienced significantly more stressful life events and were also using significantly more avoidance coping strategies as compared to their non-depressed counterparts. The moderate and severely depressed patients were exposed to more stressful life events and were using more avoidance coping strategies as compared to mildly depressed patients.

A study of attributional style in depression compared with schizophrenic and normal patients.

Seligman and his associates have advocated a particular attributional style in depressive patients. The present study aimsat investigating attributional styles in depressive patients, in comparison to schiziphrcnic and non psychiatric medical patients. A matched sample of 30 depressive, 30 schizophrenic and 30 medical patients was selected from out-door and indoor facilities of psychiatric centre and S. M. S. Hospital, Jaipur. All the patients were administered Seligman's (1981) attributional sytle questionnaire.

Prognostic significance of psychopathology in the abstinence from opiate addiction.

The aim of the present study was to find out the influence of psychopathology on abstinence from opiate addiction. A group of 54 opiate addicts with psychopathology was compared with another group of 55 opiate addicts without psychopathology. Both the groups were detoxified and followed up for a period of 12 months.Common psychopathology in opiate addicts consisted of psychopathic personality disorder, manic depressive psychosis, schizophrenia and psychosomatic and neurotic disorders. Abstinence rate was 18.8% in opiate addicts with psychopathology in contrast to 60.8% in addicts without psychopathology. The implications of the findings have been discussed.

A psychiatric study of patients attending mehandipur balaji temple.

In the present study 100 cases, randomly selected were studied at famous shrine of Rajasthan, the Mehandipur Balaji. As regards the sociodemographic variables, patients were mainly between 15-39 years of age, 80% were educated, 82% had Urban domicile, 98% were Hindus and Females were 54%. Majority of the visitors being from Northern part of India. Failure of modern treatment and influence of family members and friends were the main motivating factors. Majority of patients were Neurotic (48%), followed by Psychotics (28%). Patients who developed trance (possession) were Neurotics. One quarter of the patients who were mainly psychoneurotics, showed improvement.

A study of patients attending mehandipur balaji temple : psychiatric and psychodynamic aspects.

A sample of 100 patients were selected randomly from 10 dharamshalas who qualified the diagnosis of neuroses and developed "trance". They were subjected to tests of suggestability, intelligence, guilt, hostility and neuroticism. Patients with "trance" were significantly more suggestible and expressed more hostility and guilt as compared to those who did not develop trance. Significant differences were found on I.Q, and level of neuroticism in trance and non-trance patients as well. No significant differences were observed on suggestibility, I.Q., hostility, guilt and level of neuroticism in patients who developed trance either early or delayed.Hysterial patients with trance and non-hysterical patients with trance failed to differ on suggestibility, I.Q. and projective measures of hostility and guilt. The significance of these factors in the development of trance and cure of psychoneurotic patients in context of our cultural background and faith healing practices has been discussed.