Clinicians' judgment about an inpatient's potential for violence may be augmented by knowledge of the risk factors identified in this study. Medication variables could be especially useful predictors, particularly when information about other risk factors is not available. Factors other than mental illness per se may be crucial determinants of violence in acute inpatient settings.

There is paucity of information on suicide from Pakistan, an Islamic country in which data collection poses formidable challenges. A variety of social, legal, and religious factors make reporting and diagnosing suicide difficult. Paradoxically, incidents of suicide are regularly reported in newspapers in Pakistan. In the absence of other means these reports serve a useful, though basic information source for suicidal deaths. A 2-year analysis of all such reports in a major newspaper in Pakistan showed 306 suicides reported from 35 cities. Men (n = 208) outnumbered women by 2:1. While there were more single than married men, the trend was reversed in women. The majority of subjects were under 30 years of age and "domestic problems" was the most common reason stated. More than half the subjects used organophosphate insecticides, while psychotropics and analgesics were used infrequently. The study challenges the widely held belief that suicide is a rare phenomena in an Islamic country like Pakistan, and underscores the need for more culture specific research on this important public health problem.

The COVID19 pandemic has brought untold tragedies in its wake. However, one outcome has been the dramatically rapid replacement of face-to-face consultations and other meetings including clinical multidisciplinary team meetings with telephone or video conferencing. By and large this form of remote consultation has received a warm welcome from both patients and clinicians. To date, human, technological and institutional barriers may have held back the integration of such approaches in routine clinical practice, particularly in the UK context. As we move into the post-pandemic phase, it is vital that academic, educational and clinical leadership builds on this positive legacy of the COVID crisis. Telepsychiatry may be but one component of "digital psychiatry" but is seismic evolution in the pandemic offers a possible opportunity to embrace and develop 'digital psychiatry' as a whole.

The Urdu and English versions of the GHQ-28 were administered in Pakistan to bilingual students using a crossover design, in order to evaluate the equivalence and reliability of the translation in relation to the original, and to determine convergent validity using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) as a comparison measure. Satisfactory findings at each of level of analysis indicated that the Urdu GHQ-28 was comparable to the original English version.

Reports of deliberate self-harm (DSH) are rare fromPakistan where psychotropic drugs can be obtained 'over the counter'. A retrospective analysis of 382 index cases presenting to a university hospital in Karachi showed self-poisoning with benzodiazepines as the most common method, followed by organophosphate insecticides. Salicylates and non-opiate analgesics were significantly absent from our series. Implications of these findings are discussed.