BackgroundDepression is a serious mental illness that affects patients’ treatment outcome and caregiver’s day to day life. The prevalence of depression among caregivers of patients with severe mental illness is greater than the general population. Little is known about depression among primary caregivers of patients with severe mental illness in Ethiopia. This study is aimed at assessing prevalence of depression and associated factors among primary caregivers of patients with mental illness.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among primary caregivers of patients with severe mental illness in Jimma University Teaching Hospital. Patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used to assess depression. A multidimensional scale of perceived social support (MSPSS) was used to assess perceived social support; Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye opener (CAGE) scale was used to assess alcohol use disorder. After conducting descriptive analyses, logistic regression analysis was finally used for bivariate and multivariable analysis.ResultThe overall prevalence of depression among primary caregivers of patients with mental illness was 12 (19%). Out of those caregivers with depressions, 11.3, 3.5 and 4.2% had moderate, moderately severe and severe types of depression respectively. The prevalence of depression among female primary caregivers was 25% (n = 40). Being single (aOR 2.62, 95% CI = 1.07, 6.41), giving care more than six hours per day (aOR 3.75, 95% CI = 1.51, 9.33) and caring for a patient who had more than once episodes of suicidal attempts (aOR 1.48, 95% CI = 1.07, 3.42) were positively associated with depression among caregivers of patients with mental illness.ConclusionWe found that the prevalence of depression among primary caregivers was high. Depression among caregivers was associated with giving care more than six hours per day and caring for a patient who had two or more episodes of suicidal attempts. The prevalence of depression among female caregivers was higher than that of the male caregivers. Therefore, special focus should be given to primary caregivers spending long hours for providing care, those with low perceived social support; caregivers of patients with suicidal ideation and female caregivers.

BackgroundRecently, khat chewing has become a common practice among high school, college, and university students. Regular khat chewing is thought to be a predisposing factor for different physical and mental health problems. It can lead to absenteeism from work and classes. In Ethiopia, to our knowledge no published study has investigated khat withdrawal symptoms. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence, withdrawal symptoms, and associated factors of khat chewing among regular undergraduate students on the main campus of Jimma University in Ethiopia.MethodsThe institution-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2016. Data were collected from 651 main campus regular undergraduate students with a structured, self-administered questionnaire, entered into Epidata 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for Windows. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to explore associations and identify variables independently associated with khat chewing.ResultsThe study found that the lifetime and current prevalence of khat chewing among students were 26.3% (95% CI: 24.3, 28.3) and 23.9% (95% CI: 21.94, 25.86), respectively. About 25.7% of students started chewing after joining university, and 60.5% of these students started during their first year. The main reason given for starting khat chewing was for study purposes (54.6%), followed by socialization purposes (42.3%). Among current khat chewers, 72.9% reported that they had chewed khat for 1 year or more and 68.2% reported that they had experienced various withdrawal symptoms. The most frequently reported withdrawal symptoms were feeling depressed, craving, and feeling fatigued. Being male, attending a place of worship daily/2–3 times per week, cannabis use, smoking cigarettes, and having family members currently chewing khat were independently associated with khat chewing.ConclusionsThis study found that large numbers of university students were currently chewing khat. In this study withdrawal symptoms and factors that significantly affect khat chewing were identified. Besides it gave new ideas regarding khat withdrawal symptoms in Ethiopia. It serves as a critical role of providing information to form rational foundation for public health policy, prevention and planning to bring change in contributing factors for Khat chewing. The finding will be serving as base line information for further study.

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Background Tardive Dyskinesia is described as a movement disorder that can be caused by the prolonged use of antipsychotics. It is a permanent condition that affects quality of life. However, studies on TD among psychiatric patients in Ethiopia are limited. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of Tardive dyskinesia among psychiatric patients on first-generation antipsychotics at Jimma University specialized hospital (JUSH) psychiatric clinic, Jimma, South west Ethiopia.Method Hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted using Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) and Schooler and Kane research criteria to identify cases of first-generation antipsychotic-induced TD among 151 psychiatric outpatients on first-generation antipsychotics at Jimma University Specialized Hospital psychiatric clinic. Simple random sampling method was employed to select subjects from a total of 912 patients on follow-up and logistic regression analysis was employed to identify associated factorsResult In our study the prevalence of first-generation antipsychotic induced TD was 14.6% (95%CI: 10.76%, 18.4%). In the final model multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that age (AOR 4.5, 95%CI: 9.7, 20.4), current smoking cigarettes (AOR 1.4, 95%CI: 2.6, 7.8) and chlorpromazine equivalent dose (AOR 6.5, 95%CI: 2.6, 26.8) had statistically significant association with first-generation antipsychotic induced TD.Conclusions Considerable number of psychiatric patients were suffered from first-generation antipsychotic induced TD. Age and current smoking cigarettes and chlorpromazine equivalent dose had significant association with first-generation antipsychotic induced TD. Therefore, stakeholders should consider and appropriately address these statistically identified associated factors in order to reduce antipsychotic induced TD.

Fig. 1. Our four-stage proposed guideline, HDAV (Hypothesis-Driven Approach for VAST), for students tackling VAST Challenges.HDAV follows the practice of pre-registering hypotheses before visual analysis and experimental design [4,8], encouraging students to critically consider the analytic questions prior to analyzing the full dataset. Only after a student has fully articulated their hypotheses should they move to performing data analysis. The final arrow denotes that once the data analysis process begins, students should not return to forming hypotheses. Doing so could result in HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known) [11] and false discoveries [32].