Epidemiologia e psichiatria sociale最新文献

Aims: Based on findings from population surveys, we provide an overview of the public's emotional reactions to people with mental illness.

Methods: A literature search for populations studies using measures of emotional response to people with mental illness was carried out. In addition, data on the public's emotional reactions, originating from representative surveys conducted in Germany in the years 1990, 1993 and 2001, were analysed.

Results: Positive emotional reactions to people with mental illness are most prevalent, followed by fear and anger. This pattern appears relatively stable across different cultures. In recent years, the emotional response of the public remained unchanged or even deteriorated. The public seems to react quite differently to people with different mental disorders. Emotional reactions have a substantial effect on the desire for social distance. The association between familiarity with mental disorder and the desire for social distance is to a considerable extent mediated through emotions.

Conclusions: The public's emotional reactions to people with mental disorder are relatively under-researched. More research may help better understand the complexities of the stigma surrounding mental illness. Interventions aimed at reducing the stigma of mental illness may benefit from paying more attention to emotions.

Run-in periods are frequently used when designing a clinical trial. In this paper we analysed the implications of run-in periods for interpreting the results of clinical trials and applying these results in clinical practice. Study reports should indicate in details how run-in periods were carried out.

The magnetic resonance imaging studies investigating the volumes of the orbitofrontal cortex in patients suffering from schizophrenia are here presented, trying to elucidate its role for the pathophysiology and for the cognition of the disease.

Aim: Literature documents that the judgments people hold about themselves, their life, and their future are important ingredients of their psychological functioning and well-being, and are commonly related to each other.

Methods: We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) under the classical test theory, regression analysis, and a cross national design.

Results: This study provides new findings attesting to the hypothesis that evaluations about oneself, one's life, and one's future rest on a common mode of viewing experiences which we named "Positive Orientation".

Conclusions: Results from an Italian and a Canadian study are presented, attesting to a latent dimension that lies at the core of positive evaluations and that corroborates the utility of the new construct as a critical component of individuals' well-functioning.

Aim: Instruments to measure the process--the daily activities of home care workers--have received little attention and may impede research in refining the active ingredients, the clientele best served and continuous quality improvement. We developed a decade ago in Quebec, Canada, a new daily contact log (relevé quotidien des contacts or RQC) that has now reached in practice 1 million entries.

Methods: Three features distinguish the RQC development, namely, practical ergonomics, a clear logic, and response categories easy to understand and retain. The instrument is filled following any 10-minute or more contact with or about the client, and covers the location, time and actors of the episode of care, and the nature of the intervention (crisis, representing, accompanying, discussing) in 10 areas (i.e. medication, daily living activities, housing, relationships, substance abuse, legal, etc.). Inter-rater agreement for each RQC response category and rater agreement with a criterion measure (coded vignettes) were evaluated.

Results: Kappa coefficients and intra-class correlation coefficients yielded results ranging from at least moderate to generally substantial agreement for all 77 response categories.

Conclusions: The new RQC may support international studies of the implementation and application of various forms of intensive home care, refining its indications, and serves as a clinical and managerial tool to ensure quality of the interventions.

The aim of this Editorial is to describe the association between child sexual abuse and psychosis, and to consider potential mechanisms for the association. The association is strongly supported by the literature. Evidence from a variety of sources is triangulated in order to create a plausible model of the link, which can then be used to direct future research. The mechanisms are certainly complex, and there is evidence of interacting contributions at genetic, neurophysiological, behavioural, cognitive and emotional levels. Child sexual abuse is an important antecedent in psychosis, both theoretically and clinically. At the theoretical level, it potentially illuminates mechanisms by which psychotic symptoms are generated, at the clinical level it opens possibilities for improving cognitive-behavioural approaches to treatment.

Aim: Since the importance of latitude of living for the prevalence of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is unclear, the study aims to test the latitude hypothesis by comparing SAD in two rather similar groups of students living at latitudes far apart.

Methods: Two groups of students, 199 in Tromsø, Norway (690 N) and 188 in Ferrara, Italy (440 N) were asked to fill in the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire.

Results: Global Seasonality score (GS-score) was significantly higher in Italian than in Norwegian students, in females and in students with sleeping-problems. Norwegian students had significantly higher SAD prevalence in winter and in spring. Most people in both countries felt worst in October and November, and the prevalence of Autumn SAD was not significantly different between the two countries.

Conclusions: The hypothesis that SAD is linked to amount of environmental light and latitude of living was not supported.