ISRN Psychiatry最新文献

Schizophrenia is the most severe and most debilitating mental illness, which is one of the first ten causes of disability in youth and elderly people. Regarding many consequences that schizophrenia brings for individual and social functioning of ill people, their assessment of the quality of their lives seems to be interesting. The aim of this study is to evaluate the incidence and severity of anxiety and depression as well as analysis of the impact level of anxiety and depression on life quality of people with schizophrenia. A group of patients with schizophrenia from psychiatric centers was involved in a study. A set of methods, included: author's questionnaire, the quality of life scale WHOQOL-BREF, and the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS). Anxiety disorders occurred in more than 78% of respondents, while depressive disorders in more than half of respondents. The more severe anxiety and depressive disorders, the lower values were observed in all tested components of quality of life. The study of quality of life of the mentally ill patients should be conducted on a continuous basis in order to explore the current factors influencing the improvement of their psychophysical welfare. It is necessary to promote prohealthy mental lifestyle.

The presence of depression in alcohol-dependent persons is likely to influence treatment process and outcomes. Identification of depression is important though not every depressed alcohol-dependent person requires treatment with antidepressants. Understanding the association between depression and alcohol dependence is essential for proper management of alcohol dependence. Objectives. To determine the prevalence of depression among alcohol-dependent persons before and after alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation. Design. Clinical trial with pre-/postmeasurements. Method. The CIDI and WHO-ASSIST were administered to 188 alcohol-dependent persons at intake and after six months. A researcher-designed sociodemographic questionnaire was also administered at intake. Results. The prevalence of depression among alcohol-dependent persons is high (63.8%) with a significant association between depression and the mean AUDIT score. At posttest, depressed participants had a statistically significant craving for alcohol. Conclusion. Alcohol dependence is associated with major depression.

Background. Differentiating between schizophrenia and major depression with psychotic features often reveals diagnostic dilemma. Both share psychotic features and severe impairment in occupational functions. Severe psychomotor retardation, not uncommon in psychotic depression, may simulate negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Our work aims at utilizing Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performance as a potential differentiating neurocognitive tool. Subjects and Methods. 60 patients were recruited randomly from the outpatient service at Alexandria University Hospital: 30 patients with schizophrenia and 30 patients with chronic psychotic depression. They were subjected to Clinical Global Impression for Severity (CGI-S) scale and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) 128 card computerized version. Results. Both groups were balanced in terms of gender distribution, severity and duration of illness. The study compared all parameters of WCST. Only perseverative errors showed mild significant difference (P < 0.05) that disappeared when applying Bonferroni adaptation, setting significance level at 0.01 instead of 0.05. Conclusion. Performance on WCST is similar in schizophrenia and severe depression with psychotic features in most of the measured parameters and hence could not serve as a supplementary tool differentiating between both diagnoses in our study.

Previous studies have shown that the administration of NMDA antagonist can induce negative symptoms of schizophrenia which can be tested through the enhanced immobility observed in the forced swim test (FST). In the present study, we have compared the effects of acute as well as chronic administration of a noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist, ketamine on FST, and another behaviour despair model, tail suspension test (TST). Our observations suggest that chronic ketamine administration induced a state of enhanced immobility in FST, but such findings were not replicated in the TST model. Further, in FST, treatment with clozapine reverses the ketamine-induced immobility in mice, whereas it enhances the immobility duration in the TST model. However, haloperidol showed no protective effects in both models. The data suggests that although both of these tests show common behavioural measure of feeling despair, however, the underlying pathophysiology seems to be different. Hence, forced swim test but not tail suspension test can be used as a model of negative symptom of psychosis in mice.

Background. We examined factors associated with depression and anxiety in a cohort of low-income Baltimore women. Methods. We used Pathways to Adulthood data, a cohort of adults aged 27 to 33 who were born in Baltimore between 1960 and 1965. Our outcomes were a score of >4 on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) across the depression or anxiety domains. Linear regression clustered on census tract was used for multivariate analysis. Results. In multivariable analyses, unmarried women, White women, those with lower self-rated health, and younger mothers had higher depression scores. Only lower self-rated health and White race were associated with a higher anxiety score. Neither neighborhood poverty nor racial composition was a predictor for anxiety or depression; however, the significant risk factors cluster in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Conclusion. Our work highlights the importance of universal screening for depression or anxiety with more in-depth surveillance based on risk factors rather than on race.

Studies examining the dimensionality of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) have yielded varying results. To date, no study has investigated the measure's factor structure in the context of DSM-defined traumatic events. The present study examined the structure in an undergraduate student sample (N = 379) reporting DSM-IV Criterion-A potentially traumatic events. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not support the original five-factor structure. Follow-up exploratory factor analysis and CFA on random halves of the sample showed poor model fit for 1-, 3-, and 7-factor models. Results suggest that the PTGI factor structure is unclear amongst individuals with DSM-IV traumatic events, and continued use of the total score is most appropriate. Future directions including the utility of the PTGI factors are discussed.

The effectiveness among inpatients with depression of a modified cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) program was examined. A group of 300 inpatient admissions with a primary diagnosis of depression attending a private psychiatric clinic were assessed at the beginning and end of a two-week CBT program. The effectiveness of the treatment was demonstrated by improvements on the Beck depression inventory (BDI), the health of the nation outcome scales, locus of control of behaviour scale, and the global assessment of function. The changes on the BDI for patients with depression were benchmarked against estimates generated from published studies. The degree of change in a two-week period for inpatients with depression was similar to that observed in efficacy studies of CBT that typically run over a more extended time. Implications for integrating CBT with inpatient services are discussed.