Dr Dewasmika Ariyasinghe
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About
Dr Ariyasinghe will be working on developing a culturally adapted brief intervention to reduce alcohol related harm in Sri Lanka, which can be used by non-medical health staff and volunteers.
Initial assessments will be done using an adapted AUDIT questionnaire, and other questionnaires developed to take information from the family members.
There will be three arms for the study; a group who receive care as usual, a second group who will be educated about the ‘unit of alcohol’ and the third group receiving the adapted intervention. The outcomes will be AUDIT score and the scores of the questionnaire given to a family member after 3 months of the initial assessment.
To study whether there is any association between childhood adverse events and later development of alcohol problems is also an objective of the study. A questionnaire designed for the purpose will be used.
Affiliations
Research interests
- Alcohol and addiction
- Cognitive impairment in mental illnesses
- Effects of aging on cognitions
- Mood disorders
Location
Room 2.04, Building 62
Publications
- Ariyasinghe D, Abeysinghe R, Siriwardhana P, Dassanayake T. Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder Among Spouses of Men Who Use Alcohol in a Rural Community in Central Sri Lanka. Alcohol and Alcoholism. 2015;50(3):328-32.
- Ariyasinghe DA, R. Catatonia following abrupt discontinuation of clozapine. Sri Lanka Journal of Psychiatry. 2014;5(2):2.
- Dassanayake TL, Baminiwatta, A. and Ariyasinghe, D.I. Demographically-adjusted normative data for Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) among Sri Lankan adults. Sri Lanka Journal of Psychiatry. 2021;12(1):07.
- Dassanayake TL, Ariyasinghe DI. Sex-, age-, and education-adjusted norms for Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery in literate Sri Lankan adults. The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 2019;33(sup1):106-24.
- Dassanayake TL, Hewawasam C, Baminiwatta A, Samarasekara N, Ariyasinghe DI. Sex-, age- and education-adjusted norms for the WHO/UCLA version of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test for Sinhala-speaking Sri Lankan adults. The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 2020;34(sup1):127-42.
- Dassanayake TL HC, Baminiwatta A, Ariyasinghe DI. Regression-based, demographically adjusted norms for Victoria Stroop Test, Digit Span and Verbal Fluency for Sri Lankan adults. The Clinical Neuropsychologist 2021.
- Fernando AM, Godavitharana, A.M.M., Pathirana, S., Tennakoon, S., Ariyasinghe, D. and Rajapakse, T.N. Stigma experienced by persons diagnosed to have a mental illness – a descriptive study. Sri Lanka Journal of Psychiatry. 2017;8(2):5.