Post-intensive care syndrome, which includes symptoms of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress, afflicts one-third of critical illness survivors. Symptoms persist and significantly degrade quality of life. No intervention has earned clear evidence of reducing these adverse psychological sequelae. Building on earlier pilot data, psychological support based on positive suggestions (PSBPS), is being investigated in an ongoing, randomized, controlled prospective trial across multiple intensive care unit (ICU) settings in a large, tertiary medical center.

Recognizing that even sedated patients perceive and internalize communication, we share lessons learned thus far in the art of engaging with sedated, often unresponsive patients.

Our presentation describes this NIH-funded PSBPS study, including the preparatory training and subsequent implementation of a structured script delivered daily to ICU patients, regardless of cognitive status or ability to respond. To interfere with the initial process of fear conditioning/negative memory formation, we introduce mitigating information about potentially traumatic events during the temporal window when initial memory consolidation occurs, reframing the alien, often frightening ICU environment while providing positive suggestions of safety and healing.

Psychiatrists characteristically engage alert, communicative patients. Unfortunately, when meaningful cognitive exchange is impossible, further effort is often limited. By contrast, choosing to engage ventilated, sedated patients with active re-interpretation is a novel enterprise. We share technique and lessons learned from the first two years.

Consultation psychiatrists are uniquely situated to explore with our critical care colleagues how best to mitigate the corrosive psychological consequences of intensive care and improve the future of ICU survivors.

No significant relationships.

It is known that early withdrawal can lead to a worsening of mental health. This is particularly relevant for depressive patients with clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR) for whom the recommended duration of treatment has not been established.

Analyze the actual treatment duration of depressive patients at CHR after their discharge from hospital and compare it with the group of depressive patients without CHR.

A comparative study of 124 depressive patients with CHR and 27 depressive patients without CHR was conducted within a year after discharge from hospital to assess the therapy duration and treatment compliance.

Within a year after discharge only 12.1% depressive patients with CHR and 29.6% ones without CHR continued to receive the therapy. The average duration of treatment after discharge was 7.4 months in the first group and 11.7 months in the second group. The majority of patients stopped treatment for the following reasons (in descending order of importance): lack of awareness of their mental condition (51.9% vs 40.3%), side effects (38.7% vs 11.1%), and negative attitudes towards the treatment on the part of patients’ immediate family members (8.9% vs 7.4%).

It has been found out that depressive patients with CHR are less likely to follow medical prescriptions than ones without CHR, they are more likely to have the lack of awareness of their mental condition, they are more likely to have side effects of the therapy. These findings require the development of a universal approach to the treatment of such patients after discharge from hospital.

No significant relationships.

Depression as a public health concern highlights the importance of prevention. The nature of the disease is complex, linked to numerous biopsychosocial factors. However, it was found that healthiest lifestyle reduced 67% the risk of depressive symptoms.

To review evidence on how exercise, diet, and smoking impact on the risk of depression.

Non-systematic review of literature through search on PubMed/MEDLINE following the terms “Lifestyles”,“risk” and “depression”.

Several studies have shown that exercise reduces the incidence of depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder regardless of intensity, geographic region, age, gender, or follow-up period. Smoking significantly increases the risk of depression, including the ones exposed to second-hand smoking and pregnant women in which prenatal smoking was associated with a three-fold increased risk of postpartum depression. The Mediterranean diet rich in complex carbohydrates, omega-3 fatty acids, B-group vitamins and several amino acids have shown a negative association with the incidence of depression. A high frequency of breakfast consumption, an increased intake of fruits, vegetables, and some specific nutrients (zinc, iron, magnesium, vitamins, and folate) was also inversely correlated with prevalence of depressive symptoms. On the other hand, western dietary patterns, with sweetened beverages, processed food, and foods rich in saturated fatty acids, have been linked to an increased risk. Skipping meals and snacking on unhealthy food also contributes to depressive symptoms.

Relatively modest changes in population diet, tobacco consumption and levels of exercise may have important public mental health benefits preventing a substantial number of new cases of depression.

No significant relationships.

Based on high rates of non-converters to psychosis, especially in children and adolescents, it was suggested that CHR criteria were (1) pluripotential, (2) a transdiagnostic risk factor, or (3) simply a severity marker of mental disorders rather than specifically psychosis-predictive. If any of these three alternative explanatory models were true, their prevalence should differ between persons with and without mental disorders, and their severity should be associated with functional impairment as a measure of severity.

To compare the prevalence and severity of CHR criteria/symptoms in children and adolescents of the community and inpatients.

We compared CHR criteria/symptoms in 8-17-year-olds of the community and of inpatients not clinically suspected to develop psychosis.

The 7.3%-prevalence rate of CHR criteria in community subjects did not differ significantly from the 9.5%-rate in inpatients. Frequency/severity of CHR criteria never differed between the community and the four inpatient groups, while the frequency and severity of CHR symptoms differed only minimally. Group differences were found in only four CHR symptoms: suspiciousness/persecutory ideas of the SIPS, and thought pressure, derealization and visual perception disturbances of the SPI-CY. These were consistent with a transdiagnostic risk factor or dimension, i.e., displayed higher frequency and severity in inpatients. Low functioning, however, was at most weakly related to the severity of CHR criteria/symptoms, with the highest, yet still weak correlation yielded for suspiciousness/persecutory ideas.

The lack of systematic differences between inpatients and community subjects does not support suggestions that CHR criteria/symptoms are pluripotential or transdiagnostic syndromes, or merely markers of symptom severity

No significant relationships.

Prevention of disorders has become a central element of psychiatric research and clinic. Currently, Ultra High Risk (UHR) criteria are internationally recognized for psychiatric risk assessment. Self Disorders (SD) aroused particular interest because they were found to be specific to schizophrenic spectrum disorders and a marker of vulnerability for psychotic onset.

To evaluate the correlation between psychotic risk and depressive symptoms in at-risk adolescent population.

We collected data from 80 patients, aged 14-18, with sufficient skills in the Italian language and an IQ ≥70, excluding patients with disorders related to direct effects of a general medical condition or substance. Psychodiagnostic evaluation included K-SADS-PL, SIPS/SOPS, EASE (for the assessment of SDs) and the CDSS (for the assessment of Depression).

35 subjects have UHR criteria, while 45 do not have a psychotic risk syndrome or psychotic features. Between the two groups there is a significant difference in the total SCORE of EASE, in domains 1, 2 and 5. In addition, a positive correlation between SDs and depressive symptoms emerged, in particular with pathological guilt and with reference ideas of guilt.

The results confirm the validity of SDs for early detection of psychosis. Depressive features appear to be associated with the presence of abnormalities of experience. This results suggest a close care and monitoring of depressive symptoms in adolescence, because they can mask disorders of different nature, particularly pathological guilt and guilty ideas of reference that are depressive “cognitive” symptoms more correlate with psychotic risk.

No significant relationships.

Вuilding psychologically close relationships with the partner is an important task of development in adolescence. Dysfunctional relationships is a source of stress, can lead to mental disorder. Reflection is a mental (rational) process aimed at analyzing, understanding, realizing oneself: one’s own actions, behavior, speech, experience, feelings, states; reflexion is a condition of orientation in interpersonal relations, formation of attitudes, perceptions, values, refinement and formation of self and partner image.

The aim was to study the reflection role in of the romantic relationship attitudes formation at adolescence.

The techniques were completed by 84 students 17-21 age (M = 19.23; SD=1,21; M/F= 83.3 / 16.7 %) 1. Attitudes About Love and Sex by C. Hendrick and S. Hendrick (Ekimchik, 2007) 2. Differential Test of Reflection (Osin, Leontiev, 2014) 3. Reflexivity Questionnaire (Karpov, 2004).

The dominant types of reflection are «Systemic reflection» and «Reflexivity of future activity» (A.V. Karpov), which correlates with age-related developmental tasks. «Reflexivity of communication and interaction with others» is found at a rather low level. Cluster analysis highlighted three groups of respondents with different types of reflection: «reflexive» (40 %), «dreamers» (36 %), «communicative» (24 %). The most pronounced types of love are Eros and Agape. There are significant differences in the expression of the love style in three groups of respondents (H-criterion Kraskel-Wallis).

Reflexion features are a factor in the formation of the cognitive-behavioral component of a love in adolescence. Optimal type of reflexion creates conditions for prevention of destructive relationships in youth.

No significant relationships.

The low prevalence of some genetic neuro-developmental syndromes associated to psychiatric disorders requests to be integrated in human genome-phenome databases from which pleiotropy can be compiled from by systematic integration of phenotypes associated with genetic loci using phenomic inference tools. Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder related to elastin gene at 7q11.23. Anxiety, depression and attention problems are the main behavioral problems found in WBS with no gender differences. Significant differences between cohorts are reported in particular regarding somatic complaints and aggressive behavior.

Here, we report a Tunisian cohort of WBS patients for whom clinical behavioral phenotypes as well as genetic features are detailed.

Sixteen patients from Sfax, Tunisia were referred for genetic assessment due to a suspected WBS syndrome.

Genetic evaluation using fluorescent in situ hybridization confirmed 7q11.23 microdeletion in only eight patients. Comparison of detailed behavioral phenotypes revealed differences between age groups, gender groups and genetic groups. Anxiety and depression were recorded in the two older male patients and aggressive behavior was recorded in only two boys. The severity of behavioral features were dependent to familial environment and to parental socio-economic and educational levels.

A more complete understanding of phenomic space is critical for elucidating genome-phenome relationships mediating neurodevelopmental disorder associated to psychiatric diseases for assessing and managing psychiatric and behavioral risks in young syndromic children.

No significant relationships.

In 2016 the United Nations launched their “Decade of action on nutrition” promoting a healthy and sustainable food pattern. The International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research held its first International Conference in 2017. Current evidence in this area consists mainly of association studies, while interventional studies with food supplements or altered diet patterns are starting to emerge.

To our knowledge practice based research on promoting healthy food and investigating the role of medical professionals is scarse in general and especially so in psychiatry. Hence, our research questions were: 1. What is the attitude of mental health professionals with regard to promoting healthy food in their patients. 2. What is the subjective knowledge and attention in training schemes on this topic.

We conducted a self-made online questionnaire using a 5 point Likert Scale. Surveys were sent out to 50 mental health professionals of our institution, including psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, General Practitioners and Mental Health Nurse Practitioners. Results were analysed with descriptive statistics.

40 (80%) of the respondents returned the questionnaire. 65% of respondents considered promoting healthy food as a key task for themselves in their daily practice. 45% of respondents believed their patients would be reluctant to follow advice on healthy diet. 62% had sufficient knowledge on the subject to give professional advice, while 65% answered this topic received insufficient attention during their training.

In this survey we found the role of promoting healthy diet deserves more attention in mental health practice and training. Smartphone applications may ameliorate treatment adherence.

No significant relationships.

Early detection of psychosis is a promising area in preventive psychiatry. The use of early intervention can prevent the first episode psychosis and improve outcomes.

Identification of premorbid features of depressive patients at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) comparing with depressive patients without CHR in order to improve early recognition of the psychotic process.

219 young depressive in-patients with CHR criteria for SOPS with attenuated positive and attenuated negative symptoms and 52 young depressive in-patients without CHR were examined. Presence of obstetric complications, neurodevelopmental deviance, neurological and psychiatric signs at the premorbid stage, and the level of premorbid functioning on the PAS were examined.

It has been established that depressive patients at CHR and without CHR had some obstetric complications (57.5% and 40.4%, respectively). Neurodevelopmental deviance in the first year of live was in 57.5% patients with CHR. At the age of 3-5 sleep disorders, ADHD and phobias were more common in patients at CHR than without it (58.8% and 32.7%, p=0.014). In pubertal, patients at CHR were more likely to show depression symptoms, obsessions, and aggression - 90.4% versus 76.9% (p=0.029). On the PAS scale, a decrease of the level of premorbid functioning has been observed in two groups of patients with and without CHR from the age of 12: from 12 to 15 years, 0.4 and 0.3 (p=0.004), from 16 to 18 years, 0.47 and 0.37 (p 0.001).

Premorbid functioning were worst in patients with CHR, which indicates the possibility of early clinical detection of psychosis.

No significant relationships.

This study was carried out to map psychosis spectrum disorder risk factors.

Our goal was to find what kind of instrumental methods may help to detect latent liabilities for schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder

Using online questionnaires n=710 students were screened. Groups were formed based on the inclusion criteria: N = 25 people prone to mood swings, N = 30 people prone to odd experiences and delusive thinking, and a normal control group with N = 30 people. Personality, temperament, self-experiences, affectivity scales, and cognitive screening were conducted in addition to actigraphy coupled with a mobile application for detecting subjective experiences (EMA). Furthermore, instrumental examination of self-agency, testing time interval discrimination and (re)production, eye-tracking, EEG-microstates, and laboratory testing of inflammatory, immunologic and cardio-metabolic measures of allostatic load were applied.

Self-experience disorders: both risk groups showed significantly higher scores than the control group (CG). Self-agency: based on incorrectly attributed responses, the positive schizotypy risk factor (PSF) group differed from the CG (p = 0.003). Antisaccade study: the PSF group showed a difference from the CG (p = 0.002). Actigraphy: based on the distributions of diurnal cumulative activities, it distinguished those with a cyclothymic risk factor (CTF) from the CG (67% probability in the k-means clustering procedure).

Healthy students with a latent liability for schizotypy or bipolarity could be distinguished by some targeted laboratory methods. Susceptibility for bipolarity was indicated by actigraphic analyzes, and the risk for schizotypal development was indicated by deficiencies in the self-agency experience and by anti-saccadic eye movement disorders.

No significant relationships.

We need to live in harmony with our lifestyle rhythms to stay healthy. A problem in our time is that technical devices have no respect for rhythm.If we get caught up in the technique and start neglecting our natural body needs such as sleep, eat and exercise – it will affect our health negatively. Today, children have increasing problems with mental health. When analyzing the problem we find rhythmical problems, often associated to technology. Being a parent in our time is hard. Time has come for us to take active care of our natural rhythms, to stay healthy.

Increasing mental health problems among the young is a global issue in the industrialized world. We see a connection between digitization, the intro of smartphones 2007 and the increase of anxiety, depression and melt downs in children who are left with to little adult guidance. Their screen time becomes to long leading to impaired health due to long sedentary time. The result is not enough physical activity, obesity, introversy because of lack of IRL social contact etc. The problems are well known but why don´t we talk more about them and help our children to deal with it?

Read any statistics about mental helath among the young in the industrialized countries.

While studying the statistics in Sweden over time the results of the bad sustainability of living are clear.

The adult world needs a wake up call which I will give in my oral presentation. I will also present proposals of solution.

No significant relationships.

Due to the Covid-19 effects, mental health conditions are now, more than ever, affecting our daily lives - both personally and professionally. The average delay between the onset of first symptoms of a mental health disorder and seeking suitable healthcare is 11 years. The WHO states that the only sustainable way to reduce mental healthcare burden is by acting earlier.

The aim of this project is to assess the receptivity and engagement of a mobile app for mental health prevention, amongst a large-scale and heterogeneous group of individuals. The main hypothesis under testing is that people are receptive to actively act towards mental health prevention, despite still being a very neglected and stigmatized topic.

A mobile app for mental health improvement and disease prevention was developed through the digitalization of positive psychology strategies, such as mood tracking, journaling, breathing exercises, among others, which are personalized to the user through biofeedback. The app aims at teaching people how to autonomously cope with mental health conditions, identifying early signs and redirecting them to proper mental health professionals. The app is being released for a population of 35,000 subjects resident in Portugal.

Receptivity and engagement metrics will be assessed on a weekly and monthly basis, for 3 months, segmented by different subject profiles. Mental health metrics will also be assessed, namely anxiety, depression, and burnout levels - using standard psychiatric scales.

We have yet to draw conclusions from the project; however, we aim to achieve first results in due time.

The aim of this research is to assess the receptivity of mental health prevention strategies using technology, namely a mobile app provided by a company.

Anxiety disorders are common in children and youth. Also, in prevention, be it universal, selective or indicated, economic evaluation supports decision-making in the allocation of scarce resources.

This review identified and summarised the existing evidence of economic evaluations for the prevention of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents.

A systematic search was conducted on the EBSCO, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Cochrane and PubMed databases. We included studies that focused on children and adolescents under 18 years of age, aimed to prevent anxiety disorders, and presented an incremental analysis of costs and effectiveness. A registered checklist was used that assessed the quality of the included articles.

The search yielded 1,697 articles. Five articles were included in this review. Three were RCT-based and two were model-based studies. Out of five included interventions, one was a universal school-based intervention, two selective interventions and two indicated interventions. Universal school-based prevention of anxiety was not cost-effective compared to usual teaching. Selective parent training and indicative child- and parent-focused CBT prevention were likely cost-effective compared to usual care or doing nothing.

Parent education and cognitive behaviour therapy interventions can be cautiously interpreted as being a cost-effective way of preventing anxiety in children and adolescents. However, the evidence is weak related to cost-effectiveness as there are only a few studies, with relatively small sample sizes and short follow-ups.

No significant relationships.

Self-determination is the developmental task (R. Havighurst) in youth leading to personality psychological well-being and health.

The aim was to study the worldview attitudes in Russian youth who are Tolkien fans.

The techniques were completed by 121 students; 17-28 age (M = 21.7; M/F= 35.5 / 64.5 %); 81 (66.9%) subscribers of the Vkontakte communities dedicated to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. 1. Incomplete Sentences by Sacks-Levy in authors’ version 2. World assumptions scale (R. Janoff-Bulman) (Padun, Kotelnikova, 2007) 3. Purpose-in-Life Test (J. Crumbaugh, L. Maholick) (Leontiev, 2000) 4. The Level of Escapism (Teslavskaya, Savchenko, 2019).

Three groups of respondents differing in their attitude to the literary genre of fantasy («fans», «amateurs», «indifferent») were identified. Respondents consider the world to be moderately benevolent, and fair, and themselves quite good people, able to control most of the events taking place in their lives. They are sure that they are often lucky in life. «Fans» have the highest tendency to escapism, the most pessimistic view of the world, with a more positive image of the person compared to other respondents. «Fans» consider their lives less emotionally rich and productive, compared to the assessment of their lives by peers of other groups.

The level of escapism expression in fantasy literature fans are higher than in respondents who do not distinguish this genre as preferred. A new theoretical and empirical work is that worldviews can be monitored and taken into account in practical psychological working with at-risk young people.

No significant relationships.

Occupational therapy (OT) offers evidence-based methods to address daily functioning improvement and better health promotion. However, many adults who are dealing with deficient daily functioning due to unrecognized Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not benefit from these developed methods. Thus, they are at risk of experiencing adjustment barriers and poor mental health.

The aim of this project is to develop a dissemination strategy in order to reach-out for this unrecognized ADHD population and grasp their attention in an early stage of life. The study following this project is measuring the possibility of this action to reach out to the individuals and make a small change in their daily functional capabilities.

The Laboratory for the Study of Complex Human Activity and Participation (CHAP) is a lab sited in the occupational therapy department at the University of Haifa. Its research address ADHD as part of further neuro-developmental challenges in the life span. The lab started a dissemination program including 4 OT researchers, and a group of former researchers for materials feedback.

In the presentation we will share the dissemination strategy and it implementation during 6 months. Moreover, we will present a theoretically map relevant virtual pathways that adults with unrecognized ADHD may cross since childhood.

This preventative program towards health promotion aims to help people achieve meaningful milestones in life and live more fully. Moreover, this strategy may serve as a prototype for similar approaches in other outreach processes.

No significant relationships.

Cardiovascular disease represent the leading cause of death worldwide, and is also responsible for the consumption of many medical resources, work absenteeism and worse Quality of Life. On the other hand, psychiatric diseases have recently gained more relevance worldwide as one of the principal causes of disability.

Evaluate a possible relationship between cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) and anxious or depressive symptoms.

Observational and cross-sectional study in a non-probabilistic and convenience sample, composed by patients followed on five primary healthcare facilites, who voluntarily accepted to answer the questionnaire through an interview, between July 2020 and January 2021. After an informed consent, a questionnaire was carried out including sociodemographic characterization, presence of cardiovascular disease and/or cardiovascular risk factors and the Portuguese version of HADS. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed, using Mann-Whitney U test. A value of p<0,05 was considered statistically significant.

Sample of 179 people, 53,1% female, with an average age of 51,05 ± 22,02 years, in which 57,5% had one or more CVRF and 59,8% had CVD and/or CVFR and the most prevalent CVRF were hypertension (48%) and dyslipidemia (43,6%). There was a statistically significant relationship between diabetes and anxiety (p<0,05).

There was a greater prevalence of anxiety symptoms in people with diabetes compared to people without diabetes. This suggests the importance of giving attention to anxiety in patients with diabetes, given the relevance of this comorbidity in their quality of life. The main limitation of the study is related with the sample size.

No significant relationships.

We present the case of a 65-year-old woman who was prescribed levodopa by the Neurology department due to motor symptoms that were not clearly suggestive of a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Before that, the patient had never showed any hallucinations or delusions. After years of increasing doses of levodopa, the diagnosis of PD was withdrawn. However, during the treatment the patient developed severe psychosis with severe impairment of social functioning. Levodopa is the most effective treatment for motor symptoms in PD. However, it might involve difficulties in dose-control and may present with deletereous complications and adverse effects.

To analyse the incidence of pharmacological psychotic symptoms after levodopa treatment.

A case report is presented alongside a review of the available literature regarding psychotic symptoms in patients treated with levodopa.

Hallucinations and delusions are prevalent symptoms of PD. Nonetheless, they could also be potential side-effects of levodopa treatment. When psychotic symptoms occur, they are commonly attributed to the natural course of the disease. Available evidence does not provide with clear guidelines to distinguish the iatrogenic syndrome from the one caused by the disease itself. Our patient, whose PD diagnosis was dismissed, presented extreme psychotic symptoms which disappeared after the discontinuation of levodopa treatment.

Levodopa is an effective treatment with important risks which must not be overlooked. Adverse effects of the drug could have been minimized by making an accurate differential diagnosis of PD. Individualized benefit-risk balance previous to prescription and a close follow-up should be standardized.

No significant relationships.

Love of life as a positive evaluation of one‘s own life plays an important role in developing a person’s positive outlook on their own wellbeing.

Our goal is to define the nature of interrelations between manifestations of love of life and some psychosocial factors of health in university students.

Using the English version of the Love of Life Scale (Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek) and the Sociocultural Health Questionnaire (E. Nikolaev), we carried out an online survey of 136 university students of both genders. A correlation analysis helped to define the interrelations.

We established that a high level of the overall rate of Love of Life, on the one hand, corresponds to high self-evaluation of a person’s health (r=.31, p<.05) and happiness (r=.47, p<.05). On the other hand, it correlates with a high level of anti-suicidal barrier (r=.20, p<.05) and low frequency of headaches (r=-.18, p<.05). Students’ desire for a long life, which would enable to achieve everything they have been dreaming of, correlates with low weight (r=-.18, p<.05). A low level of stress is connected with a greater feeling of love in life (r=-.22, p<.05) and its perception as something beautiful and fascinating (r=-.29, p<.05). Better understanding of life correlates with lower frequency of smoking (r=-.19, p<.05).

A psychological construct of Love of life, due to its negative correlations with the health risk factors has a great positive potential for a personality development and their health. It can serve as a target for a psychological impact in interventions.

No significant relationships.

According to WHO, 30-50% of workers experience psychological stress, which contributes to the development of mental and psychosomatic disorders. It’s important to develop the problem of prenosological diagnosis and determination of criteria for the formation of mental maladaptation as predictors of mental disorders in relation to occupational risk factors. Mental disorders in workers in a dangerous environment are of the nature of prenosological, not clearly delineated by a circle of diagnostic symptoms.

1st chemical factor in combination with noise and emotional stress, 2d chemical factor in combination with a threat to life (explosion and fire hazard), 3d working in conditions of noise and emotional stress

The influence of working environment conditions and non-production factors on the formation

Predicting the development of mental mailadaptive state model was developed

Vegetative disorders are most likely to manifest in group 1, comorbid of which with obsessive-phobic disorders and depressive spectrum disorders. The group 2 is characterized by astheno-vegetative symptoms in correlation with the conversion type of response. In the third professional group, the nature of predictors is characterized by a pronounced isolation of groups of symptoms, the leading of which is the vegetative pattern.Vegetative syndroms are most likely to manifest in group 1, comorbid of which is obsessive-phobic disorders and depressive spectrum disorders. The group 2 is characterized by astheno-vegetative symptoms in correlation with the conversion type of response. In the third professional group, the nature of predictors is characterized by a pronounced isolation of groups of symptoms, the leading of which is the vegetative pattern.

No significant relationships.

Serious concerns regarding the indirect physical and mental health impact of the extended school closure measure to control the spread of the pandemic have been raised, however, the extent of the problem remains unquantified in India.

To examine the impact of school closures on recreational screen time, emotional, and behavioral functioning of school-going children during the pandemic.

The survey utilized a Google form that was sent to parents of children (6-14 years) through emails and social media platforms. Parents were asked to report on the child’s duration of recreational screen time and whether the child’s overall behavioral functioning had changed since the school closures. The child’s emotional and behavioral functioning was assessed by the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The study was cleared by the Ethics committee.

A total of 160 parents were recruited for the study. Overall, a little more one-fourth (28.1%) of the children’s behavior was reported to have worsened. The mean recreational screen time was 2.65 hours (SD=1.89). A significantly higher proportion of children whose behavior worsened after school closures, relative to those whose behavior improved or remained same, had scores in the abnormal range of functioning on three of the subscales of SDQ. Stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that recreational screen time explained 2% of the variance in the total SDQ score (F=4.18. P=.04).

Increase in psychological services supporting healthy behaviors and anticipatory telehealth consultations for high-risk children and families is the need of the hour to foster psychological wellbeing during the pandemic.

No significant relationships.