BACKGROUND: Caring for patients with chronic medical and psychiatric disorders is associated with significant burden. However little is known about the burden experience by caregivers of patients with epilepsy in Nigeria. The objective of this study, therefore, was to assess the level and correlates of burden among caregivers of patients with epilepsy. METHODS: It was a cross-sectional study carried out among 231 eligible caregivers of patients with epilepsy attending the psychiatric clinic of government psychiatric hospital in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria. Socio-demographic/clinical characteristics of patients and sociodemographic characteristics of caregivers were recorded, and the Zarit Burden Interview administered to caregivers to assess their experience of burden. RESULTS: The mean age of the caregivers was 43.6 ±9.5

Social difficulties are common among epileptics. Effort should be made to educate the society about epilepsy, and physicians treating patients with epilepsy should aim at achieving a good seizure control.

Background People with mental health problems are more vulnerable to a broad range of coercive practices and human rights abuses. There is a global campaign to eliminate, or at the very least decrease, the use of coercion in mental health care. The use of coercion in psychiatric hospitals in developing countries is poorly documented. The primary aim of this study was to explore service users’ perceptions and experiences of coercion in psychiatric hospitals in Nigeria. Methods Four focus group discussions were carried out among 30 service users on admission in two major psychiatric hospitals in Nigeria. The audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and then analyzed thematically with the aid of MAXQDA software. Results The Focus group participants included 19 males and 11 females with a mean age of 34.67 ± 9.54. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis (40%, n = 12) and had a secondary school education (60%, n = 18). The focus group participants perceived coercion to be a necessary evil in severe cases but anti-therapeutic to their own recovery, an extension of stigma and a vicious cycle of abuse. The experience of involuntary admission revolved mainly around deception, maltreatment, and disdain. Participants in both study sites narrated experiences of being flogged for refusing medication. Mechanical restraint with chains was a common experience for reasons including refusing medications, to prevent absconding and in other cases, punitively. The use of chains was viewed by participants as dehumanizing and excruciatingly painful. Conclusion The experiences of coercion by participants in this study confirm that human rights violations occur in large psychiatric hospitals and underscore the need for mental health services reform. The use of coercion in this context reflects agelong underinvestment in the mental health care system in the country and obsolete mental health legislation that does not protect the rights of people with mental health problems. The study findings highlight an urgent need to address issues of human rights violations in psychiatric hospitals in the country.

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Risky behaviours in adolescents, apart from substance use, and their associate factors, have not been thoroughly investigated in Nigeria. Hence, there is a need to study the prevalence of risky behaviours and their relationship with gender and other potential risk factors. Data comprising socio-demographic, risky behaviours, personality traits, religious orientation and substance use were obtained from 300 randomly selected secondary school students. Two risk groups (low and high) based on the number of risky behaviours were determined. Male was a risk factor for theft (OR ¼ 2.1; 95%CI ¼ 1.17e3.95), bullying (OR ¼ 2.76; 95%CI ¼ 1.37e5.56) and fighting (OR ¼ 2.14; 95%CI ¼ 1.35e3.40). Fifty-two (17.3%) of the students were of high-risk behaviour group. Furthermore, private school (b ¼ 1.05; P ¼ 0.010), poor perceived relationship with teachers (b ¼ 1.21; P ¼ 0.002), polygamy (b ¼ 1.20; P ¼ 0.002) and lifetime cigarette use (b ¼ 1.07; P ¼ 0.027) were predictors of high-risk behaviour group. Substantial proportion of adolescents in Nigeria exhibit risky behaviours of which gender and other factors play a significant role.