New interaction therapy shows promise for depression in kids
New York, June 24: If your child is depressed, then a therapy-based treatment for disruptive behavioural disorders can be used as an effective treatment option, a new study suggests.
The researchers studied 229 parent-child pairs after adapting a treatment known as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) that was developed in the 1970s which added a series of sessions focussing on emotions to correct disruptive behaviour in pre-schoolers, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.
In standard PCIT treatment, parents are taught techniques for successfully interacting with their children.
The researchers adapted this standard intervention by adding a new emotional development (ED) module to the treatment to target the therapy for childhood depression.
The researchers found that children in the PCIT-ED treatment group had improved functioning and had fewer comorbid disorders. They were rated as having greater emotional regulation skills and greater "guilt reparation" compared with children in the waitlist group.
"The study provides very promising evidence that an early and brief psychotherapeutic intervention that focuses on the parent-child relationship and on enhancing emotion development may be a powerful and low-risk approach to the treatment of depression," said lead author Joan Luby from the Washington University School of Medicine.
For the study, children aged 3-6 years who met the criteria for early childhood depression and their parents were randomly assigned to PCIT-ED treatment or a waitlist group.
Children in the PCIT-ED group completed standard PCIT modules for a maximum of 12 treatment sessions, followed by an emotional development module lasting eight sessions.
Children in the waitlist group were monitored but received no active intervention though after completion of the study, they were offered PCIT-ED treatment.
The researchers assessed before and after treatment or the waiting period, children's psychiatric symptoms, their emotional self-regulation abilities, their level of impairment and functioning, and their tendency to experience guilt.
Parents were assessed for depression severity, coping styles, and strategies they used in response to their child's negative emotions, and for stress within the parent-child relationship.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
