Journal of Psychiatric Practice最新文献

This article presents a unique framework that combines insights from neuroscience with clinical assessment to evaluate individuals who have co-occurring alcohol use disorder, anxiety, and trauma. Through the use of a case study, the authors demonstrate the practical application of this framework and contextualize the relevant neurocircuitry associated with alcohol withdrawal, maladaptive fear and anxiety, and chronic stress. By integrating these perspectives, they provide a comprehensive approach for assessing and treating patients with complex psychiatric histories, particularly those presenting with anxiety symptoms, offering valuable insights for practitioners.

Objectives: Schizophrenia is associated with impairment in theory of mind (ToM), which is defined as the ability to make judgments about mental states and is related to medial prefrontal cortical activity. Ziprasidone, but not haloperidol, is known to have a protective effect in the medial prefrontal cortex. Thus, we hypothesized that these 2 drugs would have different efficacy in improving ToM task performance in patients with schizophrenia.

Methods: Patients with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) diagnosis of schizophrenia matched for sex, duration of illness, and education were randomized to receive ziprasidone (n=30) or haloperidol (n=30). All patients were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Personal and Social Functioning Scale. ToM was assessed using a first-order false belief task, a second-order false belief task, the faux-pas task, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, in order of developmental complexity and difficulty. The primary outcome was change in ToM performance from baseline to 16 weeks of treatment.

Results: For the first-order false belief task, there were no significant differences between the groups (P>0.05). For the second-order false belief task, the interaction effect was significant (P<0.05), and the simple effect of time showed a significant difference only in the ziprasidone group (P<0.001). For the faux-pas task, the interaction effect was not significant (P>0.05). For the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, the interaction effect was significant (P<0.05), and the simple effect of time showed a significant difference only in the ziprasidone group (P<0.001). The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale results were similar between the groups. The ziprasidone group performed better than the haloperidol group on the Personal and Social Functioning Scale. There were no major safety concerns or adverse events.

Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that ziprasidone could improve ToM and might be superior to haloperidol for improving complex ToM as well as personal and social functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

Trial registration chinese clinical trial register: ChiCTR2200060542.

Objectives: Although suicide prevention often dominates patient safety efforts in psychiatry and behavioral health, patients who seek such services are also prone to other kinds of adverse events. The purpose of this study was to more fully characterize the types of safety events that occur in the context of psychiatric care.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of safety events that had been reported to a hospital-based psychiatry department during a 4-year period. The authors reviewed each incident, developed new and more precise event categories, and assigned each report to a category. Events that could not be categorized were assigned to an "Other" category. The percentages of categorizable events between the new and old frameworks were compared.

Results: A total of 366 reports were filed. In the updated framework, 324 events (89%) could be categorized compared to 225 (61%) in the original registry.

Conclusions: Understanding the kinds of safety events that clinicians are likely to encounter in the context of psychiatric care may help to expand patient safety efforts beyond suicide risk prevention.

Introduction: Depressive symptoms are common in schizophrenia and can be seen at any stage of the disease. Although various models have been proposed to explain the development of depression in schizophrenia, studies investigating related psychological factors are scarce and the studies that have been done usually focus on only a small number of possible factors.

Objective: The goal of this study was to investigate the predictability of some psychological factors on depression in patients with schizophrenia. For this purpose, patients with high and low depression scores were compared.

Methods: Two groups of individuals with schizophrenia, with (n=29) and without (n=31) depression, as determined by scores on the Calgary Depression Scale in Schizophrenia, were compared using a sociodemographic data form, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Rotter Internal-External Locus 2024 of Control Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the Stress Coping Styles Scale.

Results: No differences were found between the 2 groups in terms of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, social support scores, and coping styles. Statistically significant differences were found between the groups on the PANSS positive, negative, and general psychopathology subscales, in PANSS total scores, in anxiety scores, and in locus of control scores.

Conclusions: This study showed that high levels of negative, positive, and general psychopathological symptoms, external locus of control, and high anxiety scores may be predictive of depression in individuals with schizophrenia. Studies that examine psychological factors in larger patient groups may provide the opportunity to detect and target these factors earlier in the course of schizophrenia, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality.

This review provides an overview of research evidence from the past 5 years concerning cognitive behavioral therapy for suicide prevention. The authors then discuss the clinical implementation of this approach in patients with chronic suicidal behavior.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide and remains a critical public health challenge. The burden of disease caused by smoking is disproportionately borne by persons living with mental illness. Public health efforts to address smoking have not historically translated to a significant reduction in smoking prevalence among patients with mental illness. Smoking is a substantial cause of morbidity and mortality among psychiatric patients who smoke at 1.7 to 3.3 times the rate of the general population. Among those with serious mental illness, tobacco-related illness accounts for half of all deaths. Nicotine dependence also interferes with treatment and worsens many psychiatric symptoms. Interventions are underutilized due to persistent misunderstandings regarding tobacco cessation for patients who are mentally ill. Addressing these misunderstandings is crucial in targeting the disparate rates of smoking in this population. Therefore, it is incumbent on psychiatrists to address the outsized effect that smoking has on patients with mental illness.

Recent studies have demonstrated that older adults are more vulnerable to scams because of social isolation, economic affluence, mental disorders, struggles with technology, and cognitive impairments. In this report, we present the case of a 73-year-old man who fell victim to multiple scams over 8 years, leading to a loss of more than $100,000. We also discuss approaches to managing such patients in the outpatient setting. Susceptibility to scams is considered an increasing threat to the well-being of aging societies. The complexity of the problem and the scarcity of available studies make the management of such cases challenging for clinicians.

This column presents a way of conceptualizing the clinical practice of medicine including psychiatry within the framework of the scientific method. The goal is to aid practicing clinicians as well as trainees. This conceptual framework will improve the care of patients as it applies a discipline relative to giving time-limited trials of the various treatments available and then an assessment of whether the treatment worked adequately or not and what to do in the latter case. In this way, this approach should decrease the risk of excessive multiple medication use to treat a specific patient. Incorporating this conceptual framework early in the training of mental health care prescribers would be desirable.