University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University or CU) is a collegiate public state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.&nbsp;Within India it is recognized as a &quot;Five-Star University&quot; and accredited &quot;A&quot; Grade by National Assessment and Accreditation Council.

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The University of Calcutta has secured the Fifth position among the Universities of India in the prestigious &quot;Indian University Ranking 2019&quot; list, released by the NIRF of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

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It was established on 24 January 1857, and was one of the first institutions in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and Western-style university. Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state, heads of government, social reformers, prominent artists, only academy award winner and Dirac medal winner in India, many Fellows of the Royal Society and five Nobel laureates as of 2019 which is highest in South Asia.

University Of Calcutta

The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale for measuring coping strategies used in the novel COVID-19 pandemic among the adult residents of Kolkata in India. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted, that included - conceptualization and generation of 36 items for 16 coping strategies with five-point response categories; relevance judgment (based on item validity index) &amp; item validation (based on item-domain total correlation) of these items; and identification &amp; validation of the factor structure. An online survey was conducted using snowball sampling technique during three weeks of April 2020. Complete sets could be obtained from 388 participants (200 males and 188 females). The S-CVI results (relevance of overall questionnaire) indicated high content validity (0.88) for all items of coping and significant positive item-domain total correlations were found in the process of item analysis. Based on scores of sixteen coping strategies, principal component analysis resulted in five factors as indicated by eigenvalues (1.34 to 3.32) and scree plot. These five common components were identified as positive emotion focused, escape oriented, depression developing, solution generating and self-soothing coping and a unique component- catastrophizing. This factor structure was validated through confirmatory factor analysis and same factor structure of the scale was found. Satisfactory internal consistencies of all components were found (0.61-0.89). The tool would be useful for understanding adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies used by people during a pandemic situation and it will also help in planning therapeutic intervention for combating the posttraumatic stress of this pandemic situation. Copyright © Behavioral Science Research Institute

World University root node

Psychology

Journal of Behavioral Science

Construction of a Scale on Coping Repertoire during COVID-19 Pandemic

The modified Naranjo algorithm assesses the physician assigned cause-effect relationship for homeopathic medicines. It is being adopted in homeopathy researches, but not yet validated systematically. We intended to validate the modified Naranjo algorithm by examining its psychometric properties. An online survey sought agreement of 25 experts on the 10 items of the tool on 5-point agreement scale. Next, 285 responses from collected prospectively from chronic cases enrolled under the clinical verification program of the council in 2018 were subjected to testing of construct validity using exploratory principal component analysis (PCA). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n=150) was performed to verify the goodness-of-fit of the model. Reliability was tested using internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and inter-rater reliability by kappa statistics. Experts' responses mean values were 4 or higher (i.e. responses were relevant) and standard deviations were less than 1 (i.e. less heterogeneous). In PCA using varimax, all the items loaded above the pre-specified value of 0.4 and identified 4 components explaining 64.1% of variation. The goodness-of -fit of the 4-component CFA model was acceptable (chi-square 89.253, p<0.001). Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.7) was borderline; test-retest reliability was acceptable. Kappa statistics was moderate to fair, but poor for few of the items. Statistical evaluations indicate that the modified Naranjo algorithm is useful, but needs improvement. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine

Psychometric validation of the modified Naranjo algorithm used in homeopathy for chronic cases

Advances in Autism

Autistic traits in Indian general population and patient group samples: distribution, factor structure, reliability and validity of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient

Indian Journal of Positive Psychology

Measuring academic engagement among school students: A scale construction

Purpose: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are heterogeneous disorders, and heterogeneity lies both at genetic and phenotypic levels. To better understand the etiology and pathway that may contribute to autism symptomatology, it is important to study milder expressions of autism characteristics – autistic traits or milder expressions of autism phenotype, especially in intergenerational context. This study aims to see the trend of association, if any, between child autism symptom and mothers’ autism phenotype as well as mothers’ theory of mind and to see if mothers’ theory of mind was associated with their own autistic traits. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 96 mothers of children with varying symptom severity of autism (mild, moderate and severe) using Autism Spectrum Quotient and faux pas recognition test. Analysis of variance, trend analysis and t-test were done. Findings: Results showed a linear trend of relationship between mothers’ autism phenotype and child symptom severity. However, the groups did not have significant differences in theory of mind. Only a few components of theory of mind were found to be associated with autistic traits. These findings question the prevailing idea that theory of mind can be a reliable endophenotype of autism. Research limitations/implications: There has been a lack of research assessing the possible link between parents’ autism phenotype and symptom severity of ASD children. This study is a preliminary step towards that direction. This study indicates a probability of shared genetic liability between mothers and offspring, which would have important consequences for understanding the mechanisms that lead to autism. Practical implications: This study offers implications for treatment planning of those with clinical ASD. An awareness of parental factors is critical for any holistic intervention plan when a family seeks treatment for their child. This study suggests that while individualising interventions, clinicians may consider possible presence of high levels of autistic traits and related cognitive features present in the probands’ parents. Originality/value: There has been lack of research assessing the possible link between parents’ autism phenotype and symptom severity of ASD children. This study, even though preliminary, is a step towards that direction. This study suggests that autism traits might be influenced by common genetic variation and indicates a probability of shared genetic liability between mothers and offspring, which would have important consequences for understanding the mechanisms that lead to autism. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The trend of association between autism traits in mothers and severity of autism symptomatology in children

Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing 11 (7-9)

Construction of'Kolkata-Mental Illness Stigma Scale (K-MISS)'

Theory of Mind, or the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others, forms the foundation of social cognitive processes or social cognition. Since its conception in 1978, the construct has been enjoying increasing attention from researchers and it has been widely studied in the context of autism spectrum disorder. This paper tries to review the issues surrounding the assessment of the construct. Theory of Mind (ToM) assessment goes almost synonymously with false belief tests. And assessing ToM with false belief tasks did not pose a problem because the construct had traditionally been studied mostly, if not exclusively on children. This paper discusses the danger of testing theory of mind with false belief tasks only and the serious necessity to study the construct in the adult population. The paper also discusses why the construct needs to be assessed in a culture-specific manner, the problems with the existing recent tools that have been developed to measure the construct, the complexity of simulating real social stimuli, and the subtleties around the construct that is to be taken care of while developing assessment measures. © 2019, Neuroscientia.

GENERAL

Activitas Nervosa Superior

Assessment of Theory of Mind in Adults: Beyond False Belief Tasks

Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

Does relationship between agreeableness and empathy vary considering other personality factors?: An empirical study

Indian Journal of Community Psychology

Association of temperament and character with psychopathology and prosocial behaviour

Since the very beginning of the course of infection, HIV enters into the CNS and it is reflected through neurological disorders. The aim of this study was to assess and subsequently compare the neurocognitive functioning of treatment-naive adults with HIV Stage I, II & peer control. Cross-sectional Case-control study design was followed. 22 adults (11 in stage I and 11 in stage II) with HIV infection and 11 adults as matched control were administered various standardised neuropsychological tests assessing cognitive functions like verbal fluency, executive functions, memory and visuo-spatial ability. Data were analysed by computing Kruskal Wallis one way ANOVA by ranks and post-hoc analysis (with the help of Mann Whitney U Test). Results showed that adults with HIV infected had poorer performance on most measures of memory functioning, visuo-spatial ability, verbal fluency and some measures of frontal lobe functioning in comparison to the matched peer control group. Those with stage II HIV had more compromised functions than those in stage I HIV in overall frontal lobe functioning along with inhibitory control, conceptualization, mental flexibility and sensitivity to interference. © 2016, Neuroscientia o.s. All rights reserved.

Fulltext

Profile of neurocognitive functioning in adults infected with HIV

International Journal of Education and Management Studies

Career maturity: A correlational study among girl adolescents

SIS Journal of Projective Psychology \& Mental Health

Impact of meaning in life and reasons for living to hope and suicidal ideation: A study among college students

The roles of personality, stressful life events, meaning in life, reasons for living on suicidal ideation: A study in college students

SIS Journal of Projective Psychology \& Mental Health 14 (2), 129A

A Study of Potential Correlates of Reasons for Living in College Students

Cognitive functioning of Adolescent: varying the exposure of different artistic extracurricular activities