International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) has been widely investigated in recent years becoming central evidence of both Global Mental Health (GMH) and the argument to ‘scale up' Mental Health (MH) resources worldwide. This burden of disease is defined as the difference between present health status and an ideal condition in which every person lives into old age without any illness and disability. Depression has remained high in studies looking at GBD above other forms of mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders (MNS). There are many explanations for this pattern of results. This article reviews some of the statistics on the GBD, and critically discusses other factors associated with the high burden of depression. The global burden of depression is appraised concerning its high comorbidity with physical health conditions, the methodology used in epidemiological studies, the standard metric used to compare disease-burden worldwide and the depression epidemic as a socio-cultural construct.

The difficulties of processing facial emotions in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were reported. The traditional educations have provided evidence that traditional educations improve social skills. Nonetheless, the processing of facial emotions was limited.

A serious game, called JeStiMulE, used as a computer-based game, has been developed in order to teach emotions to individuals with ASD. The long-term use of this novel game would be of interest in teaching social skills. Interestingly, the input stimuli combine both the entertainment and education. The aim of the present study was to assess the ability of children to play the game and whether they could improve and develop social skills via recognition facial emotions. A heterogeneous group of forty (n=40) children and adolescents with ASD received two one-hour JeStiMulEsessions per week over four weeks and forty (n=40) of normally developing children took part in this experiments. All participants were presented before and after training with emotion recognition tasks, two including pictures of game avatars (faces).Descriptive data showed an overall enhancing at the recognition of facial emotions after the training. The comparisons results have provided wide differences between controls.

.Jestimule exhibited encouraging results in terms of recognition of emotions and thus would help children to extend this acquisition to the real-life world. Ultimately, this striking tool should be integrated into educational therapies.

Aim: This present study aimed to assess the antipyretic and anxiolytic activities of Cymbopogon giganteus decoction in rats.

Place and Duration of Study: Experiments were conducted in the laboratory of Biological Sciences for bioassays and laboratory of Chemistry for phytochemical screening, Faculty of Science, University of Ngaoundere, Cameroon from August to October 2013.   

Methodology: For its medicinal vertues, the decoction of this plant was evaluated for its anxiolytic properties using Elevated plus maze, stress-induced hyperthermia and open field tests in rats. The decoction of C. giganteus was administrated orally to rats at doses of 34, 85, 170 and 340 mg/kg.

Results: The decoction of C. giganteus exhibited a significant anxiolytic activities in the three tests used. The plant decoction significantly reduced the body temperature in rats ranging from 36.83°C in the control to 35.43°C at the dose of 340 mg/kg. C. giganteus decoction antagonised the increase of temperature in which ΔT°C decreased from 1.06°C in the control to 0.30°C at 340 mg/kg dose in stress-induced hyperthermia test. The decoction of C. giganteus also significantly increased the number of entries ant time spent into the open arms and reduced the percentage of entries and time into the closed arms in the elevated plus maze test. Moreover in this test, the number of rearing and head dipping were also decreased. In the open field test, the decoction of the plant significantly reduced the number rearing and defecation and increased the number of crossing, centre time and grooming.

Conclusion: C. giganteus decoction possesses antipyretic and anxiolytic activities in rats and could be uses in traditional medicine to treat fever and anxiety.

There is paucity of studies on psychoactive substance use among women in their reproductive years in low and middle-income countries. With this scenario, the preventable consequences of substance abuse on the pregnant woman and unborn child have not received adequate attention in the healthcare systems. This study aimed to determine the psychosocial correlates of substance use among women attending antenatal services at a tertiary hospital in southwestern Nigeria. One hundred and thirty pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic were recruited using systematic random sampling method between March and April 2015. The researchers designed a proforma containing sociodemographic, pregnancy-related and clinical variables. The ASSIST was used to determine the prevalence of lifetime and current psychoactive substance use while General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) was administered to screen for psychological distress among the pregnant women. Fifty-three (45.4%) had used at least one psychoactive substance in their lifetime while 22(16.9%) were current users. Prevalence of current use for alcohol was 9.2%, sedatives/sleeping pills 8.5%, pain medication (narcotic analgesics) 2.3%, tobacco and stimulants 1.5% each. History of father’s alcohol use, parity, gravida and medical conditions were all associated with substance abuse in the respondents. About half of the respondents in this study use psychoactive substances. There is a need for the introduction of drug abuse prevention and intervention strategies into maternal and child health services. 

Aims: To assess the prevalence of stress, anxiety and sleep disorder among nurses on rotation shift work and those on fixed shift work system.

Design: This study was a cross-sectional study. 

Setting: This study was conducted at the Tamale West Hospital in the Tamale metropolis of Ghana, from January to April 2017.

Methods: Two hundred and forty-three (243) nurses, consisting of 20 Enrolled Nurses (E/N), 131 Registered Nurses, 62 Nursing Officers (N/O) and 30 Community Health Nurses were recruited for this study. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires containing socio-demographic data, stress assessment using the Perceived Stress Scale, anxiety assessment using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) and sleep disorder assessment. 

Results: Sixty-three (63) % of the nurses were found to have anxiety while 83% were found to be stressed. The prevalence of stress was higher among shift workers than fixed workers. Severe stress was higher in rotation shift workers. 20.8% of nurses on shift work had problems sleeping. Duration of sleep was higher among shift workers 6.464±1.195 than fixed workers 6.06±1.391. Nurses who are younger and have not been working for long periods have significantly higher anxiety symptoms than the older nurses. Also, nurses who do not engage in exercise have a significantly higher prevalence of anxiety than those who exercise.

Conclusion: Shift workers showed a higher prevalence of stress as compared to fixed workers, and female nurses were more stressed than the male nurses. Shift workers were having more sleep than attached workers. Anxiety was affected exercise and alcohol as well as the duration of service.