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Background: A number of persons with severe mental illnesses are unable to prepare for, find or keep a job due to factors linked to their illness as well as psychosocial issues. Aim: To test the feasibility of a supported employment programme to help persons with severe mental disorders obtain and sustain employment. Methods: A supported employment programme was developed for persons with severe mental disorders with components of (a) assessment of vocational potential, (b) vocational counselling, (c) networking and liaison with prospective employers, (d) job-related training and placement and (e) continued support for 6 months. Job placement status, social occupational functioning and disability (quantitative data) and benefits of enrolling in the employment programme (qualitative data) were assessed. Results: A total of 40 employers were liaised with for providing job placement and reasonable accommodation. Out of 63 participants recruited into the study, 32 (50.8%) participants were placed in competitive jobs, placement was actively attempted for 17 (27.0%) participants, 7 (11.1%) were referred for skill training and 7 (11.1%) dropped out from the study. The disability score significantly reduced and socio-occupational functioning significantly improved in those who were placed over a period of 6 months. Conclusion: The supported employment programme was found to be feasible as it showed good placement rates and improvement in socio-occupational functioning and disability scores

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Right-sided hemiatrophy may be an addition to the list of neuro-developmental and structural cerebral anomalies associated with psychotic disorders including schizophrenia.

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Background:Hamilton depression rating scale (Ham-D) is the most widely used clinician rating scale for depression. There has been no Indian study that has examined the inter-rater reliability (IRR) of video-recorded interviews of the 21-item Ham-D.Aim:To study the IRR of scoring video-recorded interviews for 21-item Ham-D.Materials and Methods:Eighteen subjects with major depressive disorder involved in a larger study were interviewed using the semi-structured clinical interview of the 21-item Ham-D by a primary rater after informed consent. These interviews were video-recorded and portions edited to ensure rater blinding. Subsequently, the video-recorded interviews were rated by a “blind” rater. Both rated the different sub-domains of Ham-D according to Rhoades and Overall (1983). IRR was evaluated using intra-class correlation coefficient.Results:Excellent IRR was observed (0.9891) between the two raters. This was true for each of the primary factors and super-factors.Conclusion:Video recorded 21-item Ham-D has excellentIRR. Video-recorded interviews of Ham-D can be reliably used to blind raters in research.