Books by Suresh Bada Math
National Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students , 2024
National Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students is now formed to assess m... more National Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students is now formed to assess mental health and wellbeing of medical students following high stress and burnout episodes. The reality is that medical students are at an increased risk of psychological distress compared to the general population. This is not merely a national phenomenon but a global one. Existing global literature consistently recognizes that 30-40% of medical students report mental health problems. There is high prevalence of anxiety, depressive disorders, suicidal ideation, substance use disorders, as well as stress and burnout in this population, said Dr. Suresh Bada Math, chairman National Task Force Wellbeing and Professor of Psychiatry, Head of Unit-5, Head of Telemedicine Centre, Head of Forensic Psychiatry, Officer-in-charge of NIMHANS Digital Academy, National Institute of Mental Health Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).
Hence, a national task force was set up to assess the mental health and well-being of medical students in India. Initially, the Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of scientific literature, which revealed a significant gap in systematic research on the risk factors and effectiveness of interventions for medical students who attempt or complete suicide.
KLE Journal
INDIAN TELEMEDICINE PRACTICE GUIDELINES IN CONTEXT
NIMHANS ISBN: 978-81-948111-4-5, 2020
Community psychiatry is a vast area for both enquiry and intervention. The seemingly infinite con... more Community psychiatry is a vast area for both enquiry and intervention. The seemingly infinite content may be somewhat overwhelming for entrants to psychiatry. A focused understanding of this discipline might help the resident to develop a basic foundation to understand the policies, programs, challenges and opportunities for service delivery in the community. Understanding and appreciating these issues are important not only from a knowledge perspective but to also generate
innovative ideas to bridge the large treatment gap for mental illnesses. To transform a huge but seemingly tedious topic into a stimulating, simple, and interesting one for a psychiatry trainee is a
challenge for teachers in the area.
To address this concern, the community psychiatry team from the Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS has come up with this updated version of the community psychiatry module. This second edition further adds the mental health perspectives of the ongoing viral pandemic and updates other chapters with recent progress in the field. Topics covered include epidemiology of psychiatric disorders, suicide, national mental health policy, programme, district and taluk mental health programs
and interface of law, policy and community psychiatry. Further, new chapters are added on common mental disorders and community mental health perspectives from child psychiatry and geriatric
psychiatry. The chapter on future of community psychiatry discusses the ongoing innovative programs in the community and Tele-psychiatry.
Book
Telemedicine (healing at a distance) is an emerging field in India. India being a developing coun... more Telemedicine (healing at a distance) is an emerging field in India. India being a developing country with 138 crores of the population having limited health care facilities. Furthermore, two-thirds of its population lives in remote rural areas making it difficult to access health care services. In this context, telemedicine is a boon for health care providers in bridging the treatment gap between rural and urban India.
The Indian government is committed to providing comprehensive health care services to the entire population through Health &Wellness Centers (HWCs). At the subcenter level, Health &Wellness Centers are led by Mid-level health providers (MLPs) who may be a registered nurse or Ayurveda practitioner. Nurses being a major workforce in the health care system offers health care services to people in rural areas. In rural India, people are not accessible or affordable to meet their health care requisites such as specialist’s opinion and tertiary care services. In this context, nurses who work at Health &Wellness Centers enable these disadvantaged populations in receiving appropriate health care through telemedicine consultation between the stakeholders and the registered medical practitioners at a higher level. Hence, telenursing needs to be integrated into the health care system to enhance, not to replace existing healthcare services.
The purpose of this document is to provide general guidelines to registered nurses about the use of telehealth technology as a part of day-to-day nursing practice. These guidelines help registered nurses in identifying their roles and responsibilities to provide safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care.
These telenursing guidelines were developed based on the code of ethics and professional conduct for nurses in India. Therefore, it provides a clear direction for registered nurses to practice telenursing within their professional boundaries. In these guidelines, the terms ‘Nurse’ and ‘Registered Nurse’ are interchangeable.
These guidelines also help the nurses on how to collaborate with specialist doctors, professional colleagues, and other health care team members in offering the best possible care in a timely manner. These guidelines act as a framework to enable nurses to adhere to ethical and professional norms and direct them to be accountable for the care offered by them. However, these guidelines should be used in conjunction with other national clinical standards, protocols, policies, and procedures.
CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH A MANUAL FOR MEDICAL OFFICERS TO PROVIDE CARE DURING AND AFTER COVID-19 PANDEMIC 2020 , 2020
Child and adolescent mental health services are so far largely restricted to urban set-ups. The m... more Child and adolescent mental health services are so far largely restricted to urban set-ups. The manpower and training required to tackle the existing healthcare burden is already limited. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed this vulnerable age group to stress and related mental health issues. Therefore, it is imperative that urgent steps are taken to address child and adolescent mental health needs at every level and to gear up training and service delivery within the community. Effective delivery of such services would require integration of
mental health services into existing programs and utilization of existing manpower such as primary care doctors at PHC, district mental health program professionals (including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers) and community health workers. These professionals can then sequentially involve other stakeholders (parents, teachers, social services, and community services). With this goal in mind, the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Community Mental Health Unit of Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS jointly collaborated with the National Health Mission, Government of Karnataka and came up with a training project called “Strengthening Primary and Secondary Mental Health Services in Karnataka”. The aim of the project was skills training and capacity building in the domain of child and adolescent psychiatry so that we have more trained professionals to
deliver mental health services in a graded manner to all children and adolescents across the state. Through this project, we were able to train all Karnataka district hospital and DMHP professionals (psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers, nurses), and 100 RBSK officers over a period of 1 year in both preventive measures and early identification of childhood mental illnesses. We continue to do online case-discussion based teaching for DMHP teams on a weekly basis
Mental capacity refers to the ability of an individual to make one's own decisions. Decision-maki... more Mental capacity refers to the ability of an individual to make one's own decisions. Decision-making capacity has been described as the “key to autonomy” and an important ingredient of informed consent. Limited or impaired mental capacity embarks on a minefield of ethical and legal issues, which doctors need to be aware of while dealing with a particular patient. The objective of this article is to critically analyze the provisions of “capacity to consent” in Mental Health Care Bill (MHC Bill 2013), under the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (UNCRPD 2006). This article also attempts to offer a practical legal framework and some concrete suggestions, for psychiatrists operating in an ethically and legally challenging area of mental capacity. Some of the highlights include attempts to translate aspirations of the UNCRPD into MHC Bill 2013, which were out of context given the available resources, the family structure of our society, and inadequate research inputs. However, there is a need to introduce the capacity to consent to the MHC Bill 2013 after comprehensive research and to study the impact of such a revolutionary idea on the family aspects of our society. There is an urgent need to formulate and validate a capacity assessment tool for our population. The MHC Bill needs to consider the repercussion and impact of capacity to consent, thereby making room for the compulsory community treatment order empowering affected family members in providing much needed treatment for persons with mental illness.
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Books by Suresh Bada Math
Hence, a national task force was set up to assess the mental health and well-being of medical students in India. Initially, the Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of scientific literature, which revealed a significant gap in systematic research on the risk factors and effectiveness of interventions for medical students who attempt or complete suicide.
innovative ideas to bridge the large treatment gap for mental illnesses. To transform a huge but seemingly tedious topic into a stimulating, simple, and interesting one for a psychiatry trainee is a
challenge for teachers in the area.
To address this concern, the community psychiatry team from the Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS has come up with this updated version of the community psychiatry module. This second edition further adds the mental health perspectives of the ongoing viral pandemic and updates other chapters with recent progress in the field. Topics covered include epidemiology of psychiatric disorders, suicide, national mental health policy, programme, district and taluk mental health programs
and interface of law, policy and community psychiatry. Further, new chapters are added on common mental disorders and community mental health perspectives from child psychiatry and geriatric
psychiatry. The chapter on future of community psychiatry discusses the ongoing innovative programs in the community and Tele-psychiatry.
The Indian government is committed to providing comprehensive health care services to the entire population through Health &Wellness Centers (HWCs). At the subcenter level, Health &Wellness Centers are led by Mid-level health providers (MLPs) who may be a registered nurse or Ayurveda practitioner. Nurses being a major workforce in the health care system offers health care services to people in rural areas. In rural India, people are not accessible or affordable to meet their health care requisites such as specialist’s opinion and tertiary care services. In this context, nurses who work at Health &Wellness Centers enable these disadvantaged populations in receiving appropriate health care through telemedicine consultation between the stakeholders and the registered medical practitioners at a higher level. Hence, telenursing needs to be integrated into the health care system to enhance, not to replace existing healthcare services.
The purpose of this document is to provide general guidelines to registered nurses about the use of telehealth technology as a part of day-to-day nursing practice. These guidelines help registered nurses in identifying their roles and responsibilities to provide safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care.
These telenursing guidelines were developed based on the code of ethics and professional conduct for nurses in India. Therefore, it provides a clear direction for registered nurses to practice telenursing within their professional boundaries. In these guidelines, the terms ‘Nurse’ and ‘Registered Nurse’ are interchangeable.
These guidelines also help the nurses on how to collaborate with specialist doctors, professional colleagues, and other health care team members in offering the best possible care in a timely manner. These guidelines act as a framework to enable nurses to adhere to ethical and professional norms and direct them to be accountable for the care offered by them. However, these guidelines should be used in conjunction with other national clinical standards, protocols, policies, and procedures.
mental health services into existing programs and utilization of existing manpower such as primary care doctors at PHC, district mental health program professionals (including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers) and community health workers. These professionals can then sequentially involve other stakeholders (parents, teachers, social services, and community services). With this goal in mind, the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Community Mental Health Unit of Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS jointly collaborated with the National Health Mission, Government of Karnataka and came up with a training project called “Strengthening Primary and Secondary Mental Health Services in Karnataka”. The aim of the project was skills training and capacity building in the domain of child and adolescent psychiatry so that we have more trained professionals to
deliver mental health services in a graded manner to all children and adolescents across the state. Through this project, we were able to train all Karnataka district hospital and DMHP professionals (psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers, nurses), and 100 RBSK officers over a period of 1 year in both preventive measures and early identification of childhood mental illnesses. We continue to do online case-discussion based teaching for DMHP teams on a weekly basis
Hence, a national task force was set up to assess the mental health and well-being of medical students in India. Initially, the Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of scientific literature, which revealed a significant gap in systematic research on the risk factors and effectiveness of interventions for medical students who attempt or complete suicide.
innovative ideas to bridge the large treatment gap for mental illnesses. To transform a huge but seemingly tedious topic into a stimulating, simple, and interesting one for a psychiatry trainee is a
challenge for teachers in the area.
To address this concern, the community psychiatry team from the Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS has come up with this updated version of the community psychiatry module. This second edition further adds the mental health perspectives of the ongoing viral pandemic and updates other chapters with recent progress in the field. Topics covered include epidemiology of psychiatric disorders, suicide, national mental health policy, programme, district and taluk mental health programs
and interface of law, policy and community psychiatry. Further, new chapters are added on common mental disorders and community mental health perspectives from child psychiatry and geriatric
psychiatry. The chapter on future of community psychiatry discusses the ongoing innovative programs in the community and Tele-psychiatry.
The Indian government is committed to providing comprehensive health care services to the entire population through Health &Wellness Centers (HWCs). At the subcenter level, Health &Wellness Centers are led by Mid-level health providers (MLPs) who may be a registered nurse or Ayurveda practitioner. Nurses being a major workforce in the health care system offers health care services to people in rural areas. In rural India, people are not accessible or affordable to meet their health care requisites such as specialist’s opinion and tertiary care services. In this context, nurses who work at Health &Wellness Centers enable these disadvantaged populations in receiving appropriate health care through telemedicine consultation between the stakeholders and the registered medical practitioners at a higher level. Hence, telenursing needs to be integrated into the health care system to enhance, not to replace existing healthcare services.
The purpose of this document is to provide general guidelines to registered nurses about the use of telehealth technology as a part of day-to-day nursing practice. These guidelines help registered nurses in identifying their roles and responsibilities to provide safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care.
These telenursing guidelines were developed based on the code of ethics and professional conduct for nurses in India. Therefore, it provides a clear direction for registered nurses to practice telenursing within their professional boundaries. In these guidelines, the terms ‘Nurse’ and ‘Registered Nurse’ are interchangeable.
These guidelines also help the nurses on how to collaborate with specialist doctors, professional colleagues, and other health care team members in offering the best possible care in a timely manner. These guidelines act as a framework to enable nurses to adhere to ethical and professional norms and direct them to be accountable for the care offered by them. However, these guidelines should be used in conjunction with other national clinical standards, protocols, policies, and procedures.
mental health services into existing programs and utilization of existing manpower such as primary care doctors at PHC, district mental health program professionals (including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers) and community health workers. These professionals can then sequentially involve other stakeholders (parents, teachers, social services, and community services). With this goal in mind, the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Community Mental Health Unit of Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS jointly collaborated with the National Health Mission, Government of Karnataka and came up with a training project called “Strengthening Primary and Secondary Mental Health Services in Karnataka”. The aim of the project was skills training and capacity building in the domain of child and adolescent psychiatry so that we have more trained professionals to
deliver mental health services in a graded manner to all children and adolescents across the state. Through this project, we were able to train all Karnataka district hospital and DMHP professionals (psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers, nurses), and 100 RBSK officers over a period of 1 year in both preventive measures and early identification of childhood mental illnesses. We continue to do online case-discussion based teaching for DMHP teams on a weekly basis
welcome step towards realizing the rights of the persons with disability. The UNCRPD proclaims that disability results
from interaction of impairments with attitudinal and environmental barriers which hinders full and active participation in
society on an equal basis with others. Further, the convention also mandates the signatory governments to change their
local laws, to identify and eliminate obstacles and barriers and to comply with the terms of the UNCRPD in order to
protect the rights of the person with disabilities, hence the amendments of the national laws. Hence, the Government of
India drafted two important bill the Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (RPWD Bill, 2014) and Mental Health
Care Bill, 2013 (MHC Bill, 2013). There is no doubt that persons with mental illness are stigmatized and discriminated
across the civil societies, which hinders full and active participation in society. This situation becomes worse with regard to providing mental health care, rehabilitation and social welfare measures to persons with mental illness. There is an
urgent need to address this issue of attitudinal barrier so that the rights of persons with mental illness is upheld. Hence,
this article discusses shortcomings in the Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (RPWD Bill, 2014) from the
perspective of persons with mental illness. Further, the article highlights the need to synchronize both the RPWD Bill,
2014 and Mental Health Care Bill, 2013 to provide justice for persons with mental illness.
Life is beautiful; because it has adventure in it....
I am adventure
the defendant was suffering from severe mental illness and therefore, was incapable of appreciating the nature of
the crime and differentiating right from wrong behavior, hence making them not legally accountable for crime. Insanity
defense is a legal concept, not a clinical one (medical one). This means that just suffering from a mental disorder is not
sufficient to prove insanity. The defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by a “preponderance of the
evidence” which is similar to a civil case. It is hard to determine legal insanity, and even harder to successfully defend
it in court. This article focuses on the recent Supreme Court decision on insanity defense and standards employed in
Indian court. Researchers present a model for evaluating a defendant’s mental status examination and briefly discuss the
legal standards and procedures for the assessment of insanity defense evaluations. There is an urgent need to initiate
formal graduation course, setup Forensic Psychiatric Training and Clinical Services Providing Centers across the country
to increase the manpower resources and to provide fair and speedy trail
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO)
Act, 2012 was formulated to effectively address the
heinous crimes of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation
of children. Legal provisions were made through
implementation of the Criminal Law (amendment)
Act, 2013, which amended the Indian Penal Code,
the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, The Indian
Evidence Act, 1972, and the Protection of Children
from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. This Criminal Law
(Amendment) Act 2013, also dictates punishment on
stalking, voyeurism, disrobing, trafficking and acid
attack
shift from relief centered post-disaster management to a holistic, multi-dimensional integrated community approach of
health promotion, disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation. This has ignited the paradigm shift from curative to
preventive aspects of disaster management. This can be understood on the basis of six ‘R’s such as Readiness (Preparedness),
Response (Immediate action), Relief (Sustained rescue work), Rehabilitation (Long term remedial measures using community
resources), Recovery (Returning to normalcy) and Resilience (Fostering). Prevalence of mental health problems in disaster
affected population is found to be higher by two to three times than that of the general population. Along with the
diagnosable mental disorders, affected community also harbours large number of sub-syndromal symptoms. Majority
of the acute phase reactions and disorders are self-limiting, whereas long-term phase disorders require assistance from
mental health professionals. Role of psychotropic medication is very limited in preventing mental health morbidity. The
role of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) in mitigating the mental health morbidity appears to be promising. Role of
Psychological First Aid (PFA) and debriefing is not well‐established. Disaster management is a continuous and integrated
cyclical process of planning, organising, coordinating and implementing measures to prevent and to manage disaster
effectively. Thus, now it is time to integrate public health principles into disaster mental health.
Aim: The aim was to examine the influence of poverty in meeting human rights needs among recovered women with mental illness at family and community level.
Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive study carried out among randomly selected (n = 100) recovered women with mental illness at a tertiary care center. Data were collected through face-to-face interview using structured needs assessment questionnaire.
Results: Our findings revealed that below poverty line (BPL) participants were not satisfied in meeting their physical needs such as "access to safe drinking water" (χ2 = 8.994, P < 0.02), "served in the same utensils" (χ2 = 13.648, P < 0.00), had adequate food (χ2 = 11.025, P < 0.02), and allowed to use toilet facilities (χ2 = 13.565, P < 0.00). The human rights needs in emotional dimension, that is, afraid of family members (χ2 = 8.233, P < 0.04) and hurt by bad words (χ2 = 9.014, P < 0.02) were rated higher in above poverty line (APL) participants. Similarly, 88.9% of women from APL group expressed that they were discriminated and exploited by the community members (χ2 = 17.490, P < 0.00). More than three-fourths of BPL participants (76.1%) believed that there were wondering homeless mentally ill in their community (χ2 = 11.848, P < 0.01).
Conclusion: There is an urgent need to implement social welfare programs to provide employment opportunities, disability allowance, housing and other social security for women with mental illness. Further, mental health professionals play an essential role in educating the family and public regarding human rights of people with mental illness.
perceptions toward nursing research are felt to influence whether or not research is utilized and conducted. However,
there is dearth of studies from India focusing this topic. Therefore, the present study was aimed to examine nurses’
attitudes and perceptions towards nursing research. Materials and methods: a quantitative, cross sectional design was
carried out among randomly selected nurses (n=132) at a tertiary care center. Data was collected through self reported
questionnaires at their work place. Results: Our findings revealed that nurses claimed a fairly positive attitude in
research usefulness and positive attitudes domains. However, nearly half of them expressed their ‘difficulty of
research’, for instance having ‘trouble with arithmetic’ (n=51, 38.7%) and ‘difficult to understand the concepts of
research’. Significant association was found between attitudes and level of education of the participants (2=97.799,
p<.023). Conclusion: The findings suggest that there is an urgent need for nurse administrators to implement inservice
educational programs for nurses in conducting and utilization of nursing research.
to their failing health, lack of gainful employment and their
dependence on others for financial and other requirements. The
difficulties faced by the elderly during disasters like Tsunami and
earthquakes have been documented by various researchers. The aim
of present study was to understand the psychosocial impact of the
Uttarakhand flood disaster on the elderly survivors, during the
initial 3 months following the event. The sample consisted of the
elderly aged above 60 years (n=62) who were affected by the
disaster, from four districts of Uttarakhand. The sample were
screened for medical and psychiatric morbidity and also assessed
across various domains of psychosocial aspects, such as loss of
livelihood, property, as well as psychological symptoms like
disturbed sleep, avoidance of reminders of the disaster, feeling of
restlessness, and vague bodily complaints, amongst others. The findings revealed a greater propensity of physical illness as well as
psychosocial impact through loss of property and livelihood, along
with psychological impact like disturbances in sleep, recurrent
flashbacks and concern about the future. The findings have been
discussed in the light of the current disaster situation in the state.
Human rights violations are commonly reported against people with mental illness and have remained a major research issue in recent times.
OBJECTIVE:
The present study was aimed to compare psychiatric patients' perceptions of human rights needs between rural and urban settings.
METHODOLOGY:
A descriptive study design was carried out among 100 recovered psychiatric patients based on the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement Scale (CGI-I scale), at a tertiary care center. Participants were selected through a random sampling method. Data was collected through face to face interviews, using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed and interpreted using descriptive and inferential statistics.
FINDINGS:
The present study highlighted the significant differences in meeting their basic human rights needs in a physical needs dimension i.e. availability of hot water for bathing (c2=8.305, p<0.40) and provision of clean clothes to wear (c2=8.229, p<0.42) were rated higher in rural participants than participants from those in an urban setting. Similarly, in the ethical needs dimension, merely 13% of the rural participants reported that they never/rarely experienced sexual advances by family members (c2=9.949, p> .019).
CONCLUSION:
Our findings revealed that human rights violations among mentally ill are evident across rural and urban environments. Thus, there is an urgent need to change the attitude of the general population towards people with mental illness through awareness campaign. In addition, educating the public about the human rights of mentally ill is also essential.