Depressive and Anxiety Disorders among the Parents of Autism in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Repeated studies found that the presence of a child with autism spectrum disorder in the family raises the psychological burden among other members, especially parents. This study was conducted to find the burden of depressive and anxiety disorders among the parents of children with Autism. This cross-sectional study was conducted at the department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh from January 2016 to September 2017. A total of 227 parents of children with Autism attended at above mentioned centers were consecutively included. Data were collected through face to face interview using the questionnaire for socio-demographic variables, SCID-I CV and DASS-21 Bangla. Data were processed and analyzed using SPSS, version 17.0. The mean age of the respondents was 35.5±6.7 years; over half (54.2%) of the respondents were 30-40 years old; 62.1% were female; 37.0% were housewife. The overall 60.35% of care givers had either depressive and or anxiety disorders where 31.7% depressive disorder and 28.6% had anxiety disorders. Major depressive disorder was the most common specific diagnosis and depressive disorders were significantly higher in mother. Of the depressed parents, 11.0% had moderate, 8.4% severe and 6.2% extremely severe depression whereas in terms of anxiety disorders, 9.0% had moderate, 3.1% severe and 1.3% extremely severe anxiety. The study found about 60.0% of the care givers had at least one depressive or anxiety disorders which warrants the need for early psychological assessment as well as early intervention like psychological, familial and social support to improve the quality of life of the parents of Autism Spectrum Disorder children.

Quality of Life among Patients with Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar Disorder is a major psychiatric disorder. It has a chronic course of remitting and relapsing episodes of mania and depression and tends to deteriorate mental and cognitive functions of patients. This disorder affects deeply the function and feelings of subjects and impacts negatively on quality of life. We found out the quality of life in patients with Bipolar Disorder with that of general population and order of impairment among domain of physical health, psychological health, social relationship and environment domain. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative and analytical study. The study was conducted in the department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh from January 2015 to October 2016. Eighty (80) patients with Bipolar Disorder who fulfilled inclusion criteria were selected as sample from department of psychiatry in BSMMU and National Institute of Mental Health, Dhaka. Clinical diagnosis of patients was done by consultant psychiatrist with Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I CV). Then Bengali version of WHO Quality of Life Scale brief version (WHOQOL BREF 1998) was applied to evaluate quality of life in different domains including physical health, psychological health, social relationship and environment domain. Semi structural questionnaire were used for collecting sociodemographic information. In this process of study age and sex matched 80 healthy controls from hospital staff and patient's attendants without physical or psychiatric illness were recruited for comparison. Data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Science Version 16. The study revealed that mean score of overall quality of life of patients were 3.11 and healthy controls were 3.95, mean score of overall health of patients were 2.94 and healthy control were 3.88, mean score of physical health domain of patients were 3.14 and healthy control were 4.00, mean score of psychological domain of patients were 3.01 and healthy control were 3.87, mean score of social relationship domain of patients were 2.31 and healthy control were 3.72, mean score of environment domain of patients were 2.73 and healthy control were 3.35. Among patients quality of life showed impaired in low socio-economic condition. Result of this study may help to encourage further research.

Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders among Female Juvenile Offenders.

Inmates of Juvenile Developmental Centers are the special group of youth population who are in conflict with law. They are vulnerable to psychiatric illness. The objective of this study was to see the prevalence and type of psychiatric disorders in institutionalized female juvenile offenders and non-offenders of same age, sex and socioeconomic group in the community. The association of mental disorders was examined in 43 female inmates of Juvenile Development Centers and 43 randomly selected comparison subjects in community. One stage-structured assessment of psychopathology was carried out by using a structured and valid Bangla version of the Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA). Development and Well-Being Assessment generated psychiatric diagnosis was assigned based on ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for research. The result revealed that, of those who were in conflict with law, 93% had mental disorder, whereas 14% of non-offenders had psychiatric disorder. Among the offenders with psychiatric disorders, most of them (32.6%) suffered from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), followed by combined MDD & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). On the other hand, among the non-offenders with psychiatric disorder 9.3% suffered from MDD. It can be concluded that considerable psychiatric disorders are prevalent among the female juvenile offenders with comparison to non-offenders. Broad-based replication study could confirm these findings.

Quality of life in patients with major depressive disorder.

This descriptive, cross sectional, comparative and analytical study assessed the quality of life of major depressive patients and healthy controls. It was carried out in the department of psychiatry of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) on patients of major depressive disorder according to structured clinical interview (SCID and diagnostic and statistical Manual) (DSM-IV) criteria. The study used world health organization quality of life scale (WHO QoL -BREF) Bangla version to assess QoL of major depressive patients. The study assessed eighty patients of major depressive disorder who were recruited purposively from the Department of Psychiatry, BSMMU who were above the age of 18 years irrespective of sex. Same number of age, sex matched hospital staff of different strata of the BSMMU were included in this study. The study shows that the all parameters of quality of life scales in patients (mean±SD) were Overall health (case 2.20±0.77 & control 3.79±0.52), Physical (case 2.77±0.383 & control 3.44±0.322), Psychological (case 2.53±0.353 & control 3.51±0.382), Social (case 2.88±0.65 & control 3.85±0.543), Environmental (case 2.87±0.533 & control 3.27±0.514) and overall quality of life (case 1.94±0.817 & control 3.71±0.556) which major depressive disorder were significantly reduced.