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The European Psychiatric Association (EPA), the main association in the field of mental health in Europe, has long been supporting the development of early career psychiatrists. The EPA Early Career Psychiatrists Committee (ECPC) and its core task forces promote research activities among young psychiatrists, contribute to their professional development through organising courses and other educational events, prepare online educational materials and publications, and actively collaborate with other organisations. The EPA ECPC is always open to fostering cooperation on new professional, educational or research initiatives with early career psychiatrists from different countries.
To assess the prevalence and structure of non-adherence in Russian population of patients with advanced atherosclerosis.
Methods
Sixty patients (mean age was 69±11 yrs, 30 males) with advanced cerebral arteriosclerosis and ischemic heart disease were randomly selected from cardiovascular department and enrolled in the study for subsequent psychiatric counseling, questionnaires and MRI procedures. Patients with stoke, focal neurological deficit and any psychiatric disorders in anamnesis were excluded.
Results
We have shown that 80% of patients have decreased or completely absent adherence to medical care. This patients were subsequently divided into three subgroups. First subgroup (30%) was characterized by partial denial of illness, where 3 (5%) patients suggest that they understanding somatic disease clinical course better than doctors. Significantly decreased compliance was most apparent in secound subgroup (30%), manifesting in self-changing drug and dosage regimen (for instance, skipping the medication without the doctor advise. In this subgroup 6 patients (10%) showed denial of treatment pattern underscored that conventional treatment for atherosclerosis as a whole is harmful for them and prefer to avoid all medications after discharge. Third subgroup included patients with vascular dementia (20%), where MRI analysis revealed white matter lesions with preferable localisation in emotional areas of cerebral (sub)cortex. There was a strong and significant correlation between the MRI white matter leasions score and treatment non-adherence level (r = 0.75).
Conclusion
Non-adherence is very prevalent in patients with advanced atherosclerosis estimating for up to 80%, while severe non-adherence is observed in 35% of patients.
Non-adherence in alcoholics is one of the major problems of contemporary Russian psychiatry.
Objective
To investigate the prevalence and structure of non-adherence in Russian men alcoholics receiving treatment in psychiatric hospital.
Methods
Forty five men(mean age 39.5 yrs) with alcoholism were randomly selected from narcology department and week after the last alcohol use enrolled in the subsequent survey including questionnaires on knowledge about the disease on treatment and health behavior. Patients with neurological deficit and any another psychiatric disorders in anamnesis were excluded.
Results
We have shown that only 4% of patients demonstrated adherence to treatment. 93% felt significant deterioration in physical well-being in the last 2–5 years, only 83% attributed it to alcohol use and only 67% were agree with diagnosis. The remaining 29% denied the alcohol dependence, but recognized the need for detoxification and general medical examination to improve the physical well-being. 96% thought unnecessary to work with a psychologist or a therapist or referral to a rehabilitation center or opioid receptor antagonist in spite of repeated failures of self-termination of drinking. They attributed this to the low efficiency of these methods and their high cost or absence problems and diseases.
Conclusion
Non-adherence is very prevalent in Russian men alcoholics. Severe non-adherence to treatment including illness denials is observed in 29% of patients. Non-adherence to treatment including most part of proposed methods is observed in 67%.
Sleep disturbances are important features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), however, data characterizing PTSD sleep phenomena are limited. Detailed clinical description of sleep function and its study with the use of modern instrumental methods is important for timely and differential diagnosis of mental disorders in PTSD patients.
21 war veterans fighting in “hot spots were observed during treatment in the specialized department of psychological rehabilitation, Samara Regional Clinical Hospital for War Veterans. After clinical interview the overnight polysomnography “Sagura-2000” (PSG) was performed.
Sleep disorders in PTSD patients are characterized by the complex of subjective, clinical and neurophysiological symptoms:
1. Superficial sleep (restless, lack of deep sleep);
2. Increased motor activity during sleep (number of activations of the paradoxical phase of sleep to those of deep sleep);
3. Nightmares;
4. Specific (defensive) movements during sleep;
5. Frequent nocturnal awakening (increased number and duration of awakenings);
6. The excess of REM sleep. PSG identified the most frequently related nightmares neurodynamic phenomena:
1. Deficiency of the deep sleep (stages 3 and 4 NREM);
2. Up to 70% of the time NREM takes stage 2 sleep;
3. The increase in motor and EEG activations;
4. The number of activations of the REM than those of NREM;
5. The increase in total REM sleep time;
6. Increasing episodes of REM sleep.
Further studies are required to clarify polysomnographic sleep changes, in particular, role of REM sleep dysregulation and treatment of sleep disorders in PTSD.
Study was supported by Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (???? 12-36-01155)
Difficulties in diagnostics of mild depressions are related to clinical interpretation of thought structure and content within depressive triad. Whereas nonverbal (motor) and affective components are similar to variations of normal sadness in healthy individuals, associative component reveals the most sensitive psychopathological finding being represented in definite language changes.
Methods
124 patients and 77 healthy controls, including 35 with normal sadness reactions, were observed. Speech (superficial, deep levels, Russian language) was studied using standardized psycholinguistic procedures. Statistical data evaluation included descriptive methodics, nonparametric analysis, mathematic modeling (discriminate analysis).
Results
Three clinical groups were formed upon to psychopathological subtypes (anxious, asthenic-hypodynamic, melancholic mild depressions). Leading hypotymic affect correlated with content of affective component, semantics of associative component, pronounced component of depressive triad and direction of the prevailing time representation.
Lexical-stylistic sublevel of speech demonstrated verbosity, narration dominated over reasoning, signs of oral speech, increased number of phraseologisms, tautologies, lexical and semantic repetitions, metaphors, comparisons, inversions, ellipsis. Lexical-grammer sublevel contained more pronouns of all types with the prevalence of personal pronouns, imperfective verbs in preferential past tense. Syntax-stylistic sublevel represented the prevalence of simple sentences (truncated, impersonal), inversive word order. Component analysis of speech demonstrated the qualitative distortion and reduction of semantic component.
Disruptions in structure and semantics of speech related to the most clinically pronounced thought disorder were presented in melancholic depression. Superficial level of speech was damaged mostly in asthenic-hypodynamic depression. Speech was similar to healthy controls and demonstrated the highest among subgroups cognitive adaptability level in anxious subtype.
Language disturbances are the core symptoms of schizophrenia [Crow,2000]. Considering the influence of migration on the symptoms of schizophrenia [Bhugra, Gupta,2011] and few studies on the interaction of schizophrenia and bilingualism [Bersudsky, et al.,2005], we hope to clarify the linguistic profile of disorder and emphasize the role of language in schizophrenia research.
Aim
To examine the linguistic features of schizophrenia in the first (L1) and the second (L2) languages, particularly in fluency as the ability to cope with native and nonnative pragmatics.
Methods
Among sixty Russian immigrants to Israel diagnosed with schizophrenia, ten Russian-Hebrew fluent bilinguals met criteria for inclusion in the study (age: M=33.8,s.d.=11.0; length of residence: M=14.6,s.d.=6.8; time of immigration to diagnosis:M=5.3,s.d=3.9; PANSS Total score: M = 94.9,s.d = 9.8). Interviews were analyzed using clinical, linguistic and fluency speech markers. Statistical evaluation included t-test for dependent samples, two-way ANOVA(Fisher LSD post-hoc test).
Results
The mean length of language samples demonstrated more productivity in L1 (Table1). Clinical speech markers associated with thought disorders were similarly represented in both languages. Linguistic markers of schizophrenia occurred more often in L2. Discourse markers, as bilingual phenomenona, reflected more dysfluency in L1.
Conclusions
1) The higher frequency of linguistic schizophrenia markers in L2 shows more impairments in the syntax/semantic components of language, where different neural representations may underlay the two languages in a bilingual brain damaged by schizophrenia. 2) The higher frequency of fluency markers in L1 reflects attempts to maintain verbal fluency, evidenced by the use of L2 lexical items, which afford a compensatory resource for communicative discourse in schizophrenia.
The aim of the current study was to explore the changing interrelationships among clinical variables through the stages of schizophrenia in order to assemble a comprehensive and meaningful disease model.
Methods.
Twenty-nine centers from 25 countries participated and included 2358 patients aged 37.21 ± 11.87 years with schizophrenia. Multiple linear regression analysis and visual inspection of plots were performed.
Results.
The results suggest that with progression stages, there are changing correlations among Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale factors at each stage and each factor correlates with all the others in that particular stage, in which this factor is dominant. This internal structure further supports the validity of an already proposed four stages model, with positive symptoms dominating the first stage, excitement/hostility the second, depression the third, and neurocognitive decline the last stage.
Conclusions.
The current study investigated the mental organization and functioning in patients with schizophrenia in relation to different stages of illness progression. It revealed two distinct “cores” of schizophrenia, the “Positive” and the “Negative,” while neurocognitive decline escalates during the later stages. Future research should focus on the therapeutic implications of such a model. Stopping the progress of the illness could demand to stop the succession of stages. This could be achieved not only by both halting the triggering effect of positive and negative symptoms, but also by stopping the sensitization effect on the neural pathways responsible for the development of hostility, excitement, anxiety, and depression as well as the deleterious effect on neural networks responsible for neurocognition.
This study is the first in a series of works devoted to the studying miscellaneous edges of the problem of Internet addiction. The study was attended by 27 young people aged 13 to 16 years (17 boys and 10 girls) and 8 mothers. The criterion for selection of testees was computer addiction.
Were identified following features of communication in families of the addicts:
100% of surveyed teens show disharmonious view of their family
92% of teenagers note features of disharmony in contact with their mother
In 87% of families there are differences in the perception of the family by the adolescent and his or her mother;
In 75% of families desire of emotional closeness does not lead to its emergence;
25% of observed families show symbiotic relationship between children and parents.
In 87% of families there is a lack of requirements, prohibitions and penalties.
62% of mothers are not able to work with their children in collaboration and cooperation
38% are able to work in pairs, but get tired quite fast and begin to suppress the child
90% of girls feel the emotional distance with their fathers
Fathers are deprived of the traditional male role
26% of mothers suffer distrust of men
It was proved that mothers of adolescents, prone to Internet addiction, can be divided into two groups by the type of family education: Following the parenting style with features of 1)hypoprotection (75%) and 2)hyperprotection (25%).
Syphilis of the nervous system is a chronic disease with light initial manifestations and severe late after-effects. in Ukraine cases with neurosyphilis have been increased since 2003 year. Clinical symptoms of neurosyphilis have been changed. Symptoms of the initial forms of neurosyphilis concealed different somatic diseases. That is why the patient with neurosyphilis become patients of any other specialists such as an ophthalmologists, a therapeutists, a neurologists, etc.
Aim to study clinical and diagnostic particulars of neurosyphilis psychiatric patients.
Materials and methods:
Psychiatric patients with neurosyphilis in period from 2003 through 2011.The detailed analysis of patients information was done. It included different types of test, investigations and anamnesis. Among them are: psychopathologic test, CT, ES, the serologic results of blood, the investigations of liquors (the cytosis one, the albumen one, the results of Zax-Vitebsky, Kan reactions) and the neurologic examination in the process of treatment.
Results:
Revealed prevalence of initial forms of neurosyphilis (mesenkhimal) over the late forms (parenchymatous). the late forms of neurosyphilis take 23,40% among the general number of patients. Dementia form takes 60,00%, the depressive - 20,00%, the expansive one −10,00% and other forms 10,00%. there are some factors of risk that actually influence the development of neurosyphilis. there are alcohol dependence, trauma of the skull and brain, general immune deficiency and the low social standard of living.
Conclusion:
Revealed increasing number of latent forms of syphilis which is consequently transferring into late forms of neurosyphilis (p > 0,001).
Phenomenon of presence of catalytic properties in immunoglobulins has been actively investigated. Research of catalytic properties of antibodies in schizophrenic patients with various clinical manifestations of the illness has not been carried out previously.
Objectives
To study DNase and proteolytic activity of immunoglobulins G isolated from serum of blood of patients with schizophrenia.
Methods
IgG have been isolated from serum of blood of 34 persons with affine chromatography. DNase activity of antibodies was identified according to degree of hydrolysis of supercoiled form of DNA of plasmid pBluescript per unit of time. Proteolytic activity was assessed according to degree of hydrolysis of basic protein myelin and its peptides. IgG were electrophoretic homogeneity.
Results
We have identified that IgG of schizophrenic patients possess a higher (0,392 ± 0,19 nM DNA /mgAB/h), than in healthy persons (0,029 ± 0,06 nM DNA /mgAB/h) specific DNAse activity. It has been shown that DNase activity is an own property of antibodies. It has been found that proteolytic hydrolysis of serum of blood of schizophrenic patients is 5 times as high as indices of hydrolysis in healthy persons. It has been revealed that patients with predominant negative symptoms show maximum high percent of protease hydrolysis 66,9%, different from patients with leading positive symptoms (13,9%).
Conclusions
Increase of DNA-hydrolyzing properties of Ig G is likely to be associated with great number of extracellular DNA. Detection of high values of proteolytic activity may be associated with occurring in serum of blood of patients of large number of destructed or damaged proteins.
The aim of this study was to investigate personal and emotional features of the adolescents with the Internet-addictive behavior.
Material
The sample comprised 542 adolescents with 218 females (40,2%) and 324 males (59,8%). The mean age was 15,5 years. The main experimental group (46 adolescents) included only those respondents who had high levels of Internet addiction combined with the objective data from the questionnaire. The control group consisted of adolescents with no signs of Internet-dependent behavior of comparable age and sex (213 adolescents).
Results
The group of adolescents with Internet-addictive behavior revealed the predominance cyclothymic, labile, asthenoneurotic, sensory, anxiety-pedantic, introverted, excitable, demonstrative and unstable types. We suggest that when characterological traits reach a level of accentuation, that becomes the factor associated with the formation of Internetaddictive behavior. The adolescents with problems of using the Internet show the general emotional instability, the tendency to experience the polar emotions simultaneously; they are excitable and have the aggressive style of communication. One of the main features of their characters is sensitivity to the danger, anxiety that caused the need to escape from the “harsh” reality. It could also be proposed that the adolescents with Internet addictive behavior separate emotions and cognitions, physicality and mentality. They isolate their own feelings and attach greater importance to the intellect. That cause the feeling of themselves as the subjects, more to do with information than with emotions, which could be poorly understood and classified.
There are no data in literature on mental disorders in HIV-infected patients with syphilis.
The objective of the study was to determine the structure of mental disorders in HIV-infected patients with syphilis.
Method
Sixty-five HIV-infected patients with syphilis were examined by a clinical method.
Results
The sample included 45 men (average age 32.09 ± 9.83) and 20 women (average age 31.7 ± 5.97). We divided the sample into three comparison groups (according to the importance of risk factors): women, men who have sex with men (MSM), and men who have sex with women (MSW).
Mental disorders were identified in most patients (83%). Opiate dependence (F11, ICD-10) was established in 55% of women (7.7% for MSW, 0% in MSM; P < 0.001). The dependence on multiple drug use (F19) was revealed with nearly the same frequency in women (25.0%) and in MSW (23.1%); but far less frequently in MSM (3.2%; P = 0.047). The dependence on stimulants (F15) was found in women (5.0%) and MSM (6.3%). The dependence on alcohol (F10) was more common among MSW (61.5%) and women (50.0%) (9.4% in MSM; P < 0.001). 20% of women had Depressive episode (F32). Adjustment disorders (F43) were found much more often in men (43.8% for MSM; 38.5% for MSW; 10% for women; P = 0.035). Personality disorders (F60) were found in all the groups.
Conclusions
We revealed a high incidence of addictions among women and MSW. Affective disorders were represented by depressive episode in women and adjustment disorders in men.
Disclosure of interest
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
One of the main risk factors for both HIV-infection and syphilis is addictive behavior.
The objective of the study was to determine the impact of addictions on the HIV and syphilis coinfection.
Method
Sixty-five HIV-infected patients with syphilis were examined by a clinical method.
Results
The sample included 45 men (average age 32.09 ± 9.83) and 20 women (average age 31.7 ± 5.97). All patients were characterized by risky behavior. Seventy-one percent of men belonged to the category of men who have sex with men (MSM). Eighty-five percent of women had drug dependence (as compared to 61% for men who have sex with women (MSW) and 19% for МSМ; P < 0.05). Women were more likely to have opiate dependence (P < 0.001; as compared to men). We revealed a high incidence of drug addiction and alcoholism with the prevalence of dependence on opioids (F11; 55.0%; 7.7%), polysubstance use (F19; 25.0%; 23.1%) and alcoholism (F10; 50.0%; 61.25%) among women and MSW respectively (P < 0.05 as compared to MSM). Only 50% of women and 23% of MSW were in remission. MSM regularly consumed stimulants and cannabinoids without developing dependence.
Conclusions
Injecting drug use is typical of women and MSW and plays a leading role in the risk factors for HIV infection and syphilis. Addictive behavior among MSM increases risky sexual behavior and thus influences infection with HIV and syphilis.
Disclosure of interest
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
Autoantibodies (Abs) to different neuronal receptors and DNA were detected in the blood of patients with schizophrenia. Abs hydrolyzing DNA were detected in pool of polyclonal autoantibodies in autoimmune and infectious diseases, such catalytic Abs were named abzymes.
Objectives
To investigate the level of anti-DNA antibodies and DNA-hydrolyzing activity of IgG from the serum of patients with schizophrenia depending on leading clinical symptoms.
Aims
– To measure the concentration of anti-DNA Abs in serum of patients with leading positive and negative symptoms;
– to determine DNA-hydrolyzing activity of IgG.
Methods
In our study, 51 patients were included. The levels of antiDNA Abs were determined using ELISA. DNA-hydrolyzing activity was detected as the level(%) of supercoiled pBluescript DNA transition in circular and linear forms. Statistical analysis was performed in “Statistica 9.0”.
Results
Anti-DNA Abs of patients with schizophrenia not only bind DNA, but quite efficiently hydrolyze the substrate. IgG of patient with schizophrenia were shown to possess DNA hydrolyzing activity. It should be noted that DNAase activity of IgG in patients with schizophrenia with a negative symptoms was significantly higher, than in patients with positive symptoms (Table 1).
Conclusions
The data show a correlation with the level of DNase activity and leading symptoms of patients with schizophrenia.
Disclosure of interest
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
We propose three calibration scenarios of to date contemporary divergence of Anoplopomatidae (skilfish Erilepis zonifer and sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria) for a data set of two mtDNA loci (СOI and Control Region). The first scenario is based upon a fossil record and the second and third ones upon major palaeogeological events 3.5 and 15 Mya. Estimated evolution speeds indicate that COI evolves faster in the skilfish mitochondrial genome. There is also evidence of skilfish going through a bottleneck event limiting its genetic diversity in the relatively recent past near Japan. Sablefish had two refugia on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. The contemporary haplotype divergence was formed ~450 thousand years ago during an ice age in the Pleistocene and contemporary populations display no apparent geographic differentiation.
This article revisits the modern political history of Niger during the 1960s to the 1980s through an analysis of relations between student activists and government authorities. It explores how a student organization, the Union des Scolaires Nigériens (USN), managed to bypass multiple layers of political control to become a well-structured political movement, capable of seriously challenging the legitimacy of the authorities. Specifically, the article examines interactions between the USN and different bodies of political power, including the Diori and Kountché governments, in the larger context of regional solidarities and the Cold War. It analyses key moments of this struggle by showing how two generations of student leaders (those of the 1960s to early 1970s and the late 1970 to early 1980s) nourished the creation of specific windows of political action, which found various outlets for expression depending on the form of state power as well as the form and methods of activist work.
If transparency in political finance is part and parcel of democracy, why do some countries adopt internationally agreed standards to regulate political finance in a more transparent way, while others do not? This paper (a) suggests a theoretical framework to address this question, taking into account international obligations, existing party finance regulation, and demands for greater legitimacy of political institutions; (b) introduces a unique data set of 46 member-countries of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) project operated by the Council of Europe; and (c) concludes that unwillingness to pay the high domestic costs of changing national regulation is the prime impediment to compliance with transparency regulation proposed by GRECO. Right-of-centre cabinets are, on average, associated with a poorer level of compliance. Interestingly, compliance with recommendations which reduce the privileges of parliamentary parties does not deviate from the overall pattern.
The opportunity of development the short-term forecasting technique of geoeffective solar flares is presented in this study. This technique is based on the effect of growth the fluctuations of horizontal component of geomagnetic field before the solar proton flares, that is considered as a prognostic parameter of solar proton flares.