In February 2020 the first cases of COVID-19 were identified in Kuwait. Inevitably as many countries worldwide, the general public were negatively affected by the pandemic. Unemployment, uncertainty, distress, increasing deaths, lockdown measures all of which are potential burdens on mental health.

To assess the impact of COVID19 outbreak on mental health in Kuwait, and to explore the potential influencing risk factors.

We conducted an online questionnaire-based study in Kuwait between 25
May 2020 to 30
May 2020. Questions were based on demographics, lifestyle during outbreak, depression and anxiety assessment. Total PHQ9 and GAD7 scores were calculated for each responder.

We had 4132 responders. Most were females (69.31%), married (59.37%), between the age of 21-30 (23.84%) and non-smokers (81.46%). Only (7.96%) had a positive past psychiatric history, (32.04%) had a past history of a chronic medical disease. During the outbreak most of the responders lost their jobs (39.21%) and only (12.83%) were attending work regularly, only (6.82%) worked in the healthcare sector. 59.27% report increased social media use compared to before the lockdown. When asked about their daily time spent following COVID19-related news, most (37.8%) spend more than 2 hours and (7.74%) spend more than 4 hours. The overall prevalence of depressive symptoms was (30.13%) and the prevalence of anxiety symptoms was (25.28%).

In the cross-sectional nature of the study.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a burden on mental health. Psychological support and mental health awareness should be implemented and made accessible to all individuals during pandemics.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a burden on mental health. Psychological support and mental health awareness should be implemented and made accessible to all individuals during pandemics.
Depression and anxiety are two common mental disorders in older people. Studies have reported that depression is strongly associate with frailty, but few studies focus on anxiety disorder and comorbid two mental disorders. In this study, we aimed to identify associations between comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms with frailty in older adults.

4,103 community-dwellings adults aged 60 and older from the baseline of the West China Health and Aging Trend (WCHAT) study were included. Frailty was measured by the Fried frailty phenotype criteria. The 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) and 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) assessed for depressive and anxiety symptoms with a cut-off value of 5. Multinomial logistic regression was used to explore the association between different depressive and anxiety status and frailty.

8.7% of old adults suffered comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms in the present study. The prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty was 47.0% and 6.7%, respectively. After adjusting for covariates, individuals with comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms had higher odds of being pre-frail (OR=1.86, 95% CI=1.41, 2.45) and frail (OR=7.03, 95% CI=4.48, 11.05) compared to those without depressive and anxiety symptoms. In the comorbidity group, those with severe comorbid symptoms also had higher prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty.

Depressive and anxiety symptom assessments were based on screening tools.

This study suggested comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms were associated with frailty among Chinese older adults. Further efforts to screen and target depression and anxiety comorbidity may be warranted.
This study suggested comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms were associated with frailty among Chinese older adults. Further efforts to screen and target depression and anxiety comorbidity may be warranted.
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) is an effective intervention for treatment-resistant Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Early improvement during high-frequency left-sided (HFL) stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is an important predictor of longer-term outcome, but most patients benefit later in their treatment course. We examined patients without early improvement with HFL to determine whether augmentation with additional stimulation approaches improved treatment outcome.

139 participants received HFL in a measurement-based care paradigm. Participants who achieved < 20% improvement by treatment 10 could continue with HFL (N=17) or receive one of two augmentation strategies bilateral stimulation (BL; HFL followed by low-frequency stimulation of right DLPFC) (N=69) or intermittent theta-burst priming of left DLPFC (iTBS-P) (N=17) for their remaining treatment sessions. The primary outcome was the percent reduction in depressive symptoms at treatment 30.

Particin for those not showing early improvement may yield superior rTMS treatment outcomes.
Loneliness is linked to a number of adverse health outcomes in the general population. There is a lack of evidence on the prevalence and impact of loneliness in people with borderline intellectual impairment.

Data from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a national survey of England, was analysed using Weights-adjusted regression analyses to compare the prevalence of loneliness and the association between loneliness and socio-demographic and clinical variables in people with borderline intellectual impairment and the general population.

Data from 6877 participants were included. Ten percent (n=671) of the sample had borderline intellectual impairment and their prevalence of loneliness was 24.5% compared to 18.4% in the general population. This difference was explained by exposure to social disadvantages. Associations were found in both groups between loneliness and being single, unemployed, low income, lower social support, feeling unsafe and discrimination in the past year. Loneliness was associated with lower wellbeing and higher rates of common mental disorders, suicidal thoughts and chronic physical disorders in both groups. Intellectual functioning moderated the relationship between loneliness and income (OR 1.82; 95%CI 1.06 to 3.11) and suicidal thoughts in the last week (OR 0.13; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.93).

IQ was measured using the National Adult Reading Test (NART), which is only valid for English speakers and loneliness was measured using a single item.

Loneliness is more prevalent in people with borderline intellectual impairment. Interventions targeting social disadvantages (e.g. low income) may lead reduce loneliness and vulnerability to mental health problems.
Loneliness is more prevalent in people with borderline intellectual impairment. Interventions targeting social disadvantages (e.g. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/ms-275.html low income) may lead reduce loneliness and vulnerability to mental health problems.