Many nations have imposed lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic as a measure to prevent the spread of disease among its population. These lockdowns have confined people at their homes which is leading them to use digital technologies such as Internet, social media, smartphones, more than ever before. The problematic use of these digital technologies may impact their mental and emotional health. This chapter discusses the role of machine learning to assess addiction to various digital technologies and its impact on mental and emotion health and on sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three case studies are provided to demonstrate how machine learning can be used to assess these addictions and related disorders during the pandemic. Gaussian mixture clustering is implemented to group people with similar Twitter usage patterns to identify addictive Twitter usage during the pandemic. The results convey that 11.71% of users show addictive Twitter usage patterns and 4.05% of users show highly addictive Twitter usage patterns while 2.70% of users show dangerously addictive usage patterns. “Sadness” and “anger” are the dominating emotions among these users in contrast to “happiness” which is the dominating emotion among non-addictive users. A similar approach is used to cluster students with similar smartphone usage patterns and nomophobia scores to identify nomophobic behavior during the pandemic. The results show that 4.5% of students are at extremely high risk whereas 73% of students are at high risk. A review of studies identifies the emergence of machine learning for assessment of mental and emotional health during the COVID-19 pandemic. A case study on sleep quality assessment using data from wearable sensors convey that sleep quality of students has been reduced significantly during the pandemic with a maximum decrease of 90.90%.

Problematic Use of Digital Technologies and Its Impact on Mental Health During COVID-19 Pandemic: Assessment Using Machine Learning

It is now recognized that the uncertainty caused by the international COVID-19 pandemic can lead to excessive, intense, and repeated mental health problems such as obsessive-compulsive traits and disturbed sleep quality. These psychological responses affect the well-being of individuals and can persist long after the outbreak. Health care workers can be viewed as more vulnerable to these psychological consequences, particularity the younger students such as the first academic year nursing students. Thus, the present study aimed to determine and explore the impact of fear of COVID-19 on obsessive-compulsive traits and sleep quality among the first-academic year nursing students. Design: A descriptive correlational design was used in this study. Setting: The study was conducted at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. Subjects: A representative sample of 275 first-year undergraduate students. Tools: Online web-based electronic questionnaires were used including A socio-demographic and Academic Data, FCV-19S, AOCS and ISI. Results: Results of the study revealed that 61.1% of the studied students had a moderate level of fear of COVID-19 pandemic and 8.7% of them had a severe level. As well, 35.3% of those students had a moderate level of obsessive-compulsive (OC) traits and 4.7% of them had a severe level of OC traits. In addition, 14.2% of them had a moderate level of insomnia during COVID-19 pandemic. Regression analysis indicates that fear of COVID-19 pandemic was a predictor of both obsessive compulsive traits (P=0.000) and insomnia severity (P=0.052). Conclusion: level of fear of COVID- 19 pandemic can predict the OC traits and insomnia severity levels among studied nursing students. Hence, early detection, picking up and effectively treating students who have intense fears of COVID 19 are emphasized before they evolve to more complex and enduring obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Immediate interventions via multidisciplinary teams, including academic mental health professionals, to the vulnerable group of students are recommended.

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Fear of COVID-19 Pandemic, Obsessive-Compulsive Traits and Sleep Quality among First Academic Year Nursing Students, Alexandria University, Egypt.

This article is an attempt to theoretically present Ubuntu/Botho philosophy as a complementary approach to guide efforts intended to restore and maintain positive emotional well-being among African Basotho school going children and youth during COVID-19 and beyond. Research shows that COVID-19 pandemic has impacted badly on school systems, particularly teaching and learning process and school life in general. The central assumption driving this paper is that factors emanating from Covid-19 pandemic do not only contribute to the damage of learning process for many learners, but they also contribute to a mental and emotional health crisis, as a result of lost access to services that are naturally offered by schools. Informed by Ubuntu/Botho philosophy, the paper argues that schools have moral obligation to protect learners’ emotional health as a crucial variable for both their complete psychosocial well-being and academic achievement. It looks at maintenance of emotional well-being from the lens of Ubuntu/Botho world view. Ubuntu/Botho adoption as a theoretical framework is an effort to contribute knowledge and suggest practice that have their foundation on the experiences of people, informed by their own sociological and cultural constructs. Ubuntu/Botho as a guiding principle places values such as compassion, empathy, sharing, respect, solidarity at the centre of human co-existence, thus, has the potential to create school relationships and support systems that can restore and maintain positive emotions.

http://www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jetss/article/download/3655/3736

Enabling Teachers as Front Liners in Maintaining Learners’ Emotional Well-Being during Covid-19 Context: Ubuntu/Botho as a Guiding Principle

The severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic impacts the health of women at reproductive age in different ways, starting from pregnancy planning to post-delivery. This narrative review summarises the challenges to obstetric practice posed by the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, we highlight the impacts of COVID-19 to obstetric practice globally and the efforts taken to address these challenges. Further study is critical to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancy, the outcome of COVID-19 positive pregnant women, and the safety of vaccination during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Obstetric challenges during COVID-19 pandemic: A narrative review.

Purpose This study investigates the effect of protection motivation theory (PMT) constructs on Arab women's feelings while seeking information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The study has adopted a mixed-method approach using semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire to explore PMT constructs' impact on women's feelings while seeking information on COVID-19. Several tests, such as standard deviation, mean, skewness, kurtosis and persons, were used to check the reliability of data and inter-relationships between constructs. Findings The study results show a significant positive correlation between PMT constructs (perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, response efficacy, self-efficacy and response cost) with the feelings of Arab women during information seeking on COVID-19. However, the relationship between threat appraisal and feelings during information seeking was more substantial than coping appraisal and feelings during information seeking. The researchers hope that this study creates a baseline of cross-cultural studies on PMT constructs' effect on women's feelings while seeking health information. Research limitations/implications The current study was conducted on female participants only. While the study intended to examine Arab women's feelings during information seeking with PMT's application, the results may be affected by other factors that were not considered in the current study. Furthermore, the questionnaire was distributed in three Arab countries, which means that the results cannot be generalized in other geographical contexts. Therefore, similar studies need to be conducted in larger geographical areas as cultural factors may produce different results. Originality/value This study explores women's feelings while seeking COVID-19 information using the PMT constructs. As far as we know, this study is the first study to investigate Arab women's feelings while seeking health information during pandemics. PMT utilization is considered a new approach to discover and measure informational needs and feelings associated with it during pandemics.

Arab women feelings while seeking information during COVID-19 pandemic: applying PMT constructs

Emotional well-being is a state of positive mental health where the individual is able to handle his emotions and all life activities He understands his emotions, learns, and copes with all the negative situations, achieves, and finds a positive emotional state which finally leads to success Covid-19 is a disease caused by newly discovered novel corona virus The outbreak came to light in December 2019 with the emergence of unexplained fever and pneumonia In the next few months, the disease spread to various countries worldwide and turned into a pandemic Governments around the world took drastic measures to control the pandemic and safeguard the citizens Strict isolation, quarantine, and lockdowns were introduced People were confined to their home for multiple days which led to intense mental stress Day-to-day activities were disturbed, and people also suffered huge-economic losses With the reduction in interpersonal contact and social activities, various psychological problems have emerged and suicides are being reported Health-care personnel went through great stress and sleepless nights in taking care of the Covid-19 patients In times of these stressful situations, the mental health awareness can play a crucial role Simple behavior changes and mindfulness can make significant changes toward positive mental health The maintenance of proper mental hygiene and regular support from mental health-care workers played a significant role in this regard However, routine personal health care became less accessible to the general public during the pandemic This has paved the way for the development of digital psychiatry Thus, we bring out this review to provide an overview of the emotional well-being, mental health awareness of people during lockdown, prevention of suicide, and emergence of digital psychiatry during Covid-19 pandemic

Emotional well-being, mental health awareness, and prevention of suicide: Covid-19 pandemic and digital psychiatry

Stevens-Johnson syndrome is a severe immune-mediated cutaneous reaction occurring due to exposure to certain drugs. Lamotrigine is an FDA approved drug used in the treatment of bipolar depression. When it is given concomitantly with sodium valproate, the risk of developing Stevens-Johnson syndrome increases. Here we present the report of a patient with bipolar depression who developed serious skin rashes while on lamotrigine and NSAID prescribed by a local doctor, who recovered after timely management. This case highlights the importance of following proper dosing, drug escalation regimen and managing drug interactions during lamotrigine therapy.

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Stevens-Johnson Syndrome while on lamotrigine and NSAID:A case report

in case of nonresponse or intolerance in young subjects with OCD, we preferred aripiprazole rather than a different SSRI. There could be several reasons for this preference. First of all, we thought that both subjects may develop similar adverse effects with another SSRI as they may require relatively higher dosage that increases the risk to develop either behavioral activation or amotivational/apathy symptoms. Second important point could be unique pharmacological actions of aripiprazole. Data from several studies in the literature as well as authors' clinical experience may have prompted aripiprazole use in these subjects. Aripiprazole acts as a partial agonist on dopamine (D2, D3) and 5-HT1A receptors and as an antagonist on 5-HT2A receptors. Because of the effect as partial agonist on 5-HT1-A receptors, it is assumed to have anti-OCD properties. There have been several studies reporting efficacy of aripiprazole augmentation or monotherapy in young subjects with OCD. We expected that aripiprazole would be effective treating OCD in these subjects without causing behavioral activation or amotivation/apathy symptoms. As expected, low dose of aripiprazole was effective in treating OCD and several behavioral and amotivatonal/apathy symptoms in these young subjects without causing any significant adverse effects. In a recent study, first author reported a 44-month-old boy with multiple diagnoses including severe and distressing symptoms of OCD. This young subject developedmaniawhile treatment with escitalopram and risperidone. His OCD and other behavioral problems were then treated successfully and safely with aripiprazole monotherapy. Obsessive compulsive disorder and ADHD are a frequent diagnosis in clinical samples among children that may show high rates of bidirectional comorbidity. Attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder has been reported as a possible risk factor to develop behavioral adverse effects with SSRIs particularly in children. Meanwhile, antipsychotics such as aripiprazole have been reported to be effective in treating ADHD symptoms in children, and several antipsychotics have been reported useful in ameliorating amotivational symptoms induced by SSRIs. Aripiprazole, therefore, was expected and was helpful in reducing behavioral and amotivatonal symptoms in these young subjects. Depending on the data from recent studies and our clinical experience, it can be suggested that aripiprazole may be a choice of psychopharmacological treatment in young subjects with OCDwho cannot tolerate SSRIs or comorbid with behavioral disorders. AUTHOR DISCLOSURE INFORMATION The authors transfer all copyright ownership of the manuscript entitled “Aripiprazole Treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in 2 Young Subjects Who Could Not Tolerate SSRIs” to the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. The authors warrant that the article is original, is not for consideration by another journal, has not been previously published, and has been prepared according to the manuscript rules. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Rajesh Mithur

Papers

Emotional well-being, mental health awareness, and prevention of suicide: Covid-19 pandemic and digital psychiatry

Stevens-Johnson Syndrome while on lamotrigine and NSAID:A case report

Topiramate (1000 mg) Abuse for Weight Loss in an Adolescent With Anorexia Nervosa.