Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced mental health worldwide. This study assessed the use of antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers in Sarajevo Canton across three periods: before, during, and after the pandemic. Methods: The data used in this study were taken from the database of the production system of the Public Institution “Apoteke Sarajevo,” Bosnia and Herzegovina. The database contains a total of 1,764,582 records on the sale of individual drugs, i.e., 2,361,059 original packages of drugs that are the subject of this research. Prescription data for psychotropic medications in the adult population were analyzed and compared between the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic phases. Results: Antidepressant use increased by 2.76% during the pandemic and by an additional 3.82% afterward. Anxiolytics showed a reduction of 5.29% during the pandemic and a further 18.14% decline post-pandemic. Antipsychotic prescriptions increased by 5.26% during the pandemic but decreased by 8.65% in the following period. Mood stabilizers increased by 6.8% during the pandemic and fell by 5.57% afterward. The most commonly used drugs were escitalopram among antidepressants, lamotrigine among mood stabilizers, bromazepam and diazepam among anxiolytics, and sulpiride, haloperidol, and promazine among antipsychotics. Conclusion: The pandemic was associated with a rise in antidepressant and mood stabilizer use, likely reflecting heightened psychological stress and social isolation, whereas anxiolytics declined and antipsychotics fluctuated. These findings underline the lasting impact of the pandemic on community mental health and the need for improved preventive and therapeutic strategies.

Sex estimation is a fundamental component of biological profiling in forensic anthropology, particularly when skeletal remains are incomplete or fragmented. This study aimed to evaluate sex estimation of the cranial base using geometric morphometrics and to assess the predictive value of cranial base morphology for sex estimation. The study included 211 adult skulls (139 male, 72 female) from the Bosnian population. Each skull was digitized to generate 3D models, and 27 anatomical landmarks were recorded. Landmark coordinates were standardized using Generalized Procrustes Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Discriminant Function Analysis with permutation testing, and regression of shape on centroid size. Statistically significant sex estimation was observed at both the form (shape and size) and shape levels. Classification accuracy based on cranial base form reached 92.81% for males and 86.11% for females. Shape-based classification, after removal of size effects, also showed high accuracy (90.65% for males and 81.94% for females). Regression analysis indicated that size contributed significantly but modestly to shape variation. The cranial base exhibits stable sexually dimorphic patterns and may represent a reliable anatomical region for sex estimation. These findings contribute to population-specific standards for the Bosnia and Herzegovina population and support the forensic applicability of 3D geometric morphometric approaches.

Background Understanding the anatomy and morphological variability of the orbital region is of great importance in clinical practice, forensic medicine, and biological anthropology. Several methods are used to estimate sex based on the skeleton or parts of the skeleton: classic methods and the geometric morphometric method. The objective of this research was to analyse sex estimation of the orbital region on a sample of skulls from a Bosnian population using the geometric morphometric method. Materials and Methods The research was conducted on three-dimensional models of 211 human adult skulls (139 males and 72 females) from the Osteological Collection at the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo. The skulls were recorded using a laser scanner to obtain skull 3D models. We marked 12 landmarks on each model to analyse sexual dimorphism. Landmarks were marked using the program Landmark Editor. After marking the landmarks, we used the MorphoJ program to analyse the morphological variability between male and female orbital regions. Results After Procrustes superimposition, generating a covariant matrix, and introducing sex as a variable for classification, a discriminant functional analysis (DFA) was applied which determined the estimation for males with 86.33% accuracy and for females with 88.89% based on the form of the orbital region. The results of regression analysis showed that the size of the orbital region has a statistically significant effect on its shape's sexual dimorphism. After excluding the influence of size and providing DFA, we concluded that sex estimation was possible with 82.01% accuracy for males and 80.55% accuracy for females based on the shape of the orbital region in the examined sample. Conclusion Sex estimation based on the orbital region was possible with more than 80% accuracy for both sexes, which is a high percentage of correct estimation. Therefore, we recommend using the orbital region of the skull for sex estimation.