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Background: Treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) is one of the most disabling forms of schizophrenia. The Indian population being different in its sociodemographic factors, clinical profiles, and family structures, the experience of the efficacy of clozapine here is insufficient. Aim: The aim of the study is to explore the efficacy of clozapine in TRS over 3 months of drug use. Materials and Methods: It was an open-label interventional 12-week follow-up study, with 30 consenting adults with TRS determined as per modified Conley and Kelly's criteria of treatment resistance. The patient's sociodemographic and clinical details were recorded. Oral clozapine was initiated with gradual up-titration after preclozapine workup. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) score was assessed at baseline and reviewed at 4 weekly intervals. Results: By the end of 12 weeks, on an average dose of 494 ± 113.83 mg/day, 36.67% of patients reported 25%-50% improvement in PANSS score. The maximum improvement was seen in the positive symptoms subscale followed by the general and negative symptoms subscale. Conclusion: This study enlightens the dosage differences and efficacy of clozapine in the management of TRS in the Indian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Health insurance (HI) is one of the ways by which Out-Of-Pocket Expenditure can be reduced. However, only 15% of the Indian population purchased some kind of HI. Thus, we aimed to study the awareness, enrollment, and reasons for non-enrollment of HI among patients attending public and private hospitals. Materials and methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 403 patients from both public and private hospitals attached to a medical college in Mangalore. Patients were interviewed using a pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire after obtaining a written informed consent. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS 25. Results: The study shows that 74.4% of the patients were aware of HI. The main sources of information were friends and Newspaper.71% had purchased a HI. The foremost reason to purchase a HI was to cover medical expenditure (84.6%), chiefly the surgical expenses. The most cited reason for non-enrollment in HI schemes was lack of awareness. Conclusion: The awareness regarding HI was found to be high. However, not all who were aware had a HI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Among few of the recreational activities of students are sports and watching cinema. Movies are found to be powerful instruments in influencing the attitudinal changes, emotional impact, education, life styles, health and other behaviours. Objectives 1. Choice of cinema among medical students 2. Perceived effects of watching cinema on study participants. Methods- This was a cross sectional study carried out among undergraduate medical students. Sample size: 153. Result: Age of the participants ranged from 18-29 years averaging 21.43 years. Hollywood movies were the most commonly watched by 113 (73.9%) followed by Hollywood movies watched by 104 (68%) study participants.77 (50.3%) participants believed that movies showing sexual violence against females badly affect the psyche of females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Medical students are exposed to tremendous pressure, leading to stress, depression and other psychiatric disorder at increasingly higher rates. The stress and depression can affect their learning and can lead to poor quality of life. The students of different professional year may have differing reasons for being under stress and in depression. Assessing stress and depression in students of different professional years may provide better insights, and help policy makers plan appropriate interventions. Aim: To measure and compare the prevalence and severity of stress, various aspects of life affected by stress and depressive symptoms among medical students of various professional years. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from February 2018 to January 2019; on 150 undergraduate medical students (50 each from 1st, 2nd and 3rd professional year) of a medical institute in Northern part of India. Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI version 5) was used to screen for depression, Student’s Stress Dimension Questionnaire (SSDQ) was used to asses for stress prevalence and severity and to find the various aspects of life affected by stress and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to measure the severity of depressive symptoms. Chi-square test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to make the group comparisons. Results: Overall stress and depressive symptoms were present in 66.7% and 52% of the participants, respectively. The three groups also differed significantly in the total score of SSDQ (H=13.664, p<0.05) HAM-D (H=11.352, p<0.05) with first professional year students having higher scores than second and third professional year students. Domain wise comparison of SSDQ also showed higher prevalence and severity of impaired domains in first professional year students. Conclusion: Special care must be taken with students admitted to medical schools. Interventions addressing stress and depression should be initiated from first professional year students itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Stress and depression are common among medical students. There are number of studies on this topic, but only few have assessed stress in clinically non-depressed medical students. Aim: To study the prevalence, severity and profile of stress and depression in undergraduate medical students and to compare the same between depressed and non-depressed students. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study, was done, on 150 undergraduate medical students, of a medical college in Northern India from February 2018 to January 2019. Students Stress Dimension Questionnaire (SSDQ) was used to assess the stress severity and to categorise various domains affected. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to measure the depressive symptoms. Chi-square, independent-t test and one-way ANOVA were used to make the group comparisons. Results: Mean age of the participants was 20.767 (SD=1.888). A total of 68.67% of the participants were males. Stress and depressive symptoms were present in 66.67% and 52% of the participants, respectively. Of the participants having no depressive symptoms 50% had stress. On group comparisons, depressed group had significantly lower mean age, higher rates of past history of psychiatric illness, higher prevalence and severity of stress, than non-depressed group. Prevalence of stress and depressive symptoms decreased with increasing seniority. Conclusion: Medical students have high prevalence of stress and depression. In majority of medical students having depression, stress is present. There are still a significant proportion of students having no depression, but having high levels of stress. So, policy makers should take note of this while planning interventions to address the mental health of medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • We monitored PM levels pre and post odd-even driving scheme in Delhi city, India. • We find that the scheme has reduced the PM 2.5 and PM 1 levels at traffic corridors. • The reduction of PM 1 is found higher than that of PM 2.5 during the days of scheme. • We find gross non-conformance towards NAAQS values for PM at traffic corridors. • Timely implementation of more stringent emission norms need to be ensured in Delhi. Abstract According to a global survey of 1600 cities by WHO in 2015, Delhi was found to be the most polluted city in the world, highlighting immediate need to bring in appropriate and effective measures to ensure a healthy air quality throughout the city. In a bid to do so, the odd-even driving scheme was implemented a few years ago in Delhi city on a trial basis requiring the vehicles bearing odd and even registration numbers to run on alternative days with effect from 1st January 2016. Applied for the very first time in India and lasting on a pilot basis for 15 days and also referred to as Phase 1 of implementation, the scheme ended on 15th January 2016 with primary goal of assessing the extent to which such a scheme could serve as an effective measure to bring down and control the excessively high ambient air pollution levels. Other associated benefits, which the study considered, were decongestion of city roads, and promoting use of public transport system and carpooling, besides other alternative modes of transport. The paper presents a comparative analysis of particulate matter concentrations recorded before and during the implementation of odd-even scheme of Phase 1 for three key traffic corridors of the city. The study reports an average reduction of PM 2.5 of 5.73% and that of PM 1.0 of 4.70% in the ambient air across all the corridors during the days of implementation of scheme, which depicts a small but positive impact of the measure adopted towards abatement of urban air pollution in the megacity of Delhi. Capsule: The study finds that the odd-even driving scheme can help to reduce particulate matter levels compared to non-scheme days at traffic corridors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realizing the dominance of petrol-driven passenger cars of MUL over the fleet of cars in India, a case study of different models of petrol-driven passenger cars of Maruti reporting at an authorized service station of M/s R.K.B.K. Automobiles, Gorakhpur was taken up and the tailpipe emissions along with individual vehicle-related parameters were monitored for idle and fast idle test conditions. The outcome of the study relating to the effect of various vehicle-related parameters on CO and HC emissions of petrol-driven passenger cars of Maruti has led to the useful inferences, which can be used not only for predicting the emission of vehicles with respect to vehicle age and mileage, but also for automobile manufacturing sector to help them produce such environmentally benign petrol-driven passenger cars having long-lasting compliance of pollution control systems with respect to vehicle age and mileage of the petrol-driven passenger cars in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]