Akhtar & Jagawat Reply

Plea of Insanity as a Defense in Criminal Cases: an Update

Mc'Naughten Rule is die commonest formulation for plea of insanity in most countries. Although assessment of the mental state at the time of offence is difficult, few instruments have been devised for this purpose. In the USA, efforts are being made to abolish the insanity defense and in the United Kingdom, amendments in the provisions of insanity defense have been proposed. The authors have st...

Restraining Psychiatric Patients

Sir, I was interested to read the report of Akhtar and Jagawat (Journal, April 1993 ) regarding the restraint of psychiatric out-patients. While inhuman treatment of psychiatrically ill persons is to be condemned, the argument against the use of physical restraint seems at best superficial in the case of many psychotic patients. In the paper under discussion, the authors have admitted that rest...

Restrained Psychiatric Outpatients: Necessity, Justification or Violation of Human Rights?

Seventy patients were brought restrained to a Psychiatric outpatient department over a three month period, with the commonest site of restraint being the wrist. They were compared with controls and it was found that restrained patients were more likely to be younger, belonging to a lower socioeconomic status, from a rural background and were more likely to be diagnosed as manic. The significanc...

Gender and Psychopathology in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

The gender difference in OCD was studied in 52 patients attending the psychiatric OPD and it was found that 35 (67.30%) patients were males compared to 17 (32.70%) females, which constituted 0.72 % and 1.03% of the male and female patients attending the OPD during the study period, respectively. Hence, inspite of the male preponderance in the study sample, it might not reflect the true prevalen...

A Problem in Avicennas View on the Origination of the Soul and a Reply to It