Background: The proportion of the elderly population is increasing in low and middle-income countries. Apart from systemic illnesses, elderly people face mental illnesses. Effect of group reminiscence therapy in reducing some of the mental health aspects showing a promising effect but the evidence is lacking in Indian settings. The present study aimed to determine the effect of reminiscence therapy in decreasing the level of loneliness, depressive symptoms, and anxiety among the elderly population at an institutional level.Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, residents of an old age home were evaluated for loneliness, depressive symptoms and anxiety through revised UCLA, geriatric depression scale, and Geriatric Anxiety Scale respectively. Group reminiscence therapy was applied to them and post-intervention assessment was done by the same scales.Results: Significant reduction of anxiety score [1.33 (0.03, 2.64)] was noticed in anxiety. Depressive symptoms showed a mean reduction in score [0.59 (-0.41, 1.6)] but statistically not significant. When graded into severity, all three outcomes showed improvement from higher severity grade to lower grade in post-intervention assessment. The intervention resulted in an improvement of 66.7% in depressive symptoms, 33.3% in anxiety and 30.8% in loneliness.Conclusions: The study found reminiscence therapy could be encouraging in resource-poor Indian settings. We recommend for further exploration of the long-term effects of this program, its feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and validation of the content for large-scale implementation.

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Background In view of the growing popularity, reach and access for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), India’s apex body for medical education, the National Medical Commission (NMC) mandated uniform foundational course on research methods for the medical post graduates (PGs) and faculty members of the medical institutions under NMC as MOOC. This course is a pioneering effort in the field of India’s PG medical education. NMC entrusted Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) to design and offer the MOOC, named as Basic Course in Biomedical Research (BCBR). We describe the experience of designing and that of implementation challenges in the inaugural cycle of the course. Methods The course objective was to inculcate the fundamental concepts in research methods covering epidemiology and biostatistics in the form of video lectures, resource materials, discussion forum, assignments, feedback and a final proctored examination. The course was delivered over 16 weeks through MOOCs platform under the Indian Ministry of Education. We reviewed records, documents and faculty notes and described the course conceptualization, development, design and implementation process. We abstracted information from course portal on enrolment profile of the participants, self-reported course feedback (structured and open-ended on format, lectures and quality of contents), examination registration form, scores obtained in the assignments/examination and that of the participant queries. We described quantitative data using descriptive statistics. We presented the thematic analysis of qualitative data from open-ended questions in the feedback system and that of email interactions. Results The inaugural cycle (September-December 2019) was taken by 24,385 participants. Majority, 15,879 (65%) were from medical background. 13,242 (54%) were medical postgraduates and 2637 (11%) were medical teachers. Among the enrolled, 14,720 (60%) cleared the assignments. A total of 11,392 (47%), 8,205 (62%) medical PGs and 896 (34%) faculty members successfully completed the course. Feedback from 1305 (5%) participants had mean score of 4.5/5 (±0.7) for quality of teaching. We faced challenges in customizing the course for medical participants, unawareness among target group, digital illiteracy and the ongoing pandemic. Conclusions During the inaugural cycle of the online Basic Course in Biomedical Research course, nearly half of the enrolled participants successfully completed and received the certificate. India’s MOOC for enhancing research capabilities of future medical researchers encountered successes and challenges. Lessons learnt from the inaugural cycle will guide future directions and to address larger issues in terms of sustainability and replication by stakeholders in medical education in India or elsewhere.