Background: Fear experienced in health care workers exposed to coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is crucial in guiding policies and interventions to maintain their psychological well-being. Our study was meant to assess fear and the use of faith as a coping mechanism used by the health care workers in the present pandemic. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, online survey conducted among health care workers of COVID-19 and non-COVID hospitals. An online self-report questionnaire was developed to assess fear and faith and how health care workers cope/react to this infectious pandemic. Results: The majority of respondents were male (65.6%), urban (69.3%), and postgraduates (87.3%) working in COVID-19 hospitals (47%) and in the age group of 30-49 (67.5%) years. The majority (97%) of the participants reported the news about the illness as disturbing with (84.3%) even fearing govt. advisories. The fear for the lives of loved ones was found in almost all. Most of them (92.8%) had the belief that God/higher power will neutralize their threat which kept them going. However, a significant number of respondents reported depressed feelings (83.8%) and upsetting ruminations (94%). About 95.2% of surveyed reported faith had helped them to maintain a positive look and faith had helped to gain a sense of security and comfort in 92.2%. Conclusion: Most of the participants feared for their own life and life of loved ones and also were having depressive symptoms and ruminations. Faith had helped them to maintain a positive look and to gain a sense of security and comfort.
Background
Clozapine is an atypical second-generation antipsychotic belonging to the family of dibenzodiazepines. There is lack of literature on clozapine from this part of the world. So, our aim was to study the socio demographic, clinical and side effect profile of patients on clozapine in Kashmir.
Results
The mean age of the study group was 32.6 ± 8.9 years with majority being males (78.4%), unmarried (78.4%), unemployed (77.2%), and belonging to nuclear families (77.2%). Almost half of them resided in urban localities (51.1%) and studied upto middle school (55.7%). Around three- fourth (75%) of the patients had diagnosis of treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The mean dose of clozapine was 338.92 ± 158.11 mgs. Sedation (76.1%), hypersalivation (69.5%), constipation (46.6%), and weight gain (34.1%) were most common side effects noted in patients. 4.5% cases developed seizures while on clozapine. 2.3% patients developed agranulocytosis while 4.5% patients developed neutropenia on clozapine. The neutropenia was more pronounced in patients of schizophrenia with suicidal tendencies with doses of more than 400 mg.
Conclusions
We have used clozapine in a wide range of indications. Our patients seem to tolerate and respond to higher doses of clozapine and the prevalence of blood dyscrasias in our study sample was much higher than the rest of India.
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