Schizophrenia can impair functioning and have serious individual and societal impact. Non-adherence rate to anti-psychotics is high due to side effects, raising the importance of adjuvant therapy. Artistic creation can help the patients expressing their illness experience and finding some order in their chaotic psychotic world.

To determine the differential effects of group art therapy on clinical symptoms and cognitive functions.

1. - Techniques taken from both art therapy and art expression provided as 24 group therapy sessions (2 sessions per week).

1. - Symptoms severity measured by the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS)

2. - Executive functions and set shifting measured by Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST)

3. - Visual attention and task switching measured by the Trail making test

1. - Post treatment results showed significant decrease in PANSS sub-scales (positive p < 0.0001, negative p < 0.001, general p < 0.001, total p < 0.0001)

2. - Also significant increase in cognitive biases in WCST (number of categories) p < 0.05 and significant decrease in WCST (failure to maintain set) p < 0.01 and trail making B test (time spent p < 0.003 and number of errors p < 0.001)

Symptom severity and cognitive functions in stable schizophrenia can improve when art expression and therapy are provided.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive psychosocial treatment developed by Marsha Linehan and originally designed for persons meeting criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). DBT contains four treatment modes that are deigned to address core problems of BPD. The four modes of treatment include individual therapy, skills training group, phone consultation and therapist consultation meeting.

The skills training group is organized as 120-150 minutes group, weekly, for 6 months. Four modules are taught across the six months period which are core mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness.

Although psychotherapeutic interventions are always the first line of treatment for BPD in most guidelines but adherence to therapy have been always a major problem.

Assessment of patient's compliance to DBT skills training group.

The aim of the current study was to estimate drop out rate in the first Egyptian DBT skills training group over one year.

Fifteen female patients diagnosed with BPD were recruited to DBT skills training over one year. Drop out rates were calculated based on the rule of being out of therapy if the patient misses four consecutive sessions for no obvious reason.

Three patients only out of 15 dropped out of treatment (20%). Twelve patients could complete the full six month DBT skills training or are still currently engaged in treatment.

Although this was the first time to teach DBT skills in Arabic, DBT skills training group among Egyptian female patients with BPD had a high compliance rates.

Much attention has focused on body dysmorphic disorder among patients undergoing plastic surgeries, but there has been little evaluation of their past history of major depressive disorder (MDD).

To estimate the prevalence rate of past history of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in patients undergoing Blepharoplasty operation in a private ophthalmology hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

All patients who have undergone blepharoplasty operation during the period from 5 April to 4 October 2016 (6 months) were included. Previous psychiatric history was taken from the patients by psychiatric assessment and self-assessment questionnaire, diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) confirmed previously by consultant psychiatrists in patients’ health records was included.

One hundred and forty-eight persons undergone blepharoplasty in the hospital from 5 April to 4 October 2016. They were 89 females (60%) and 59 males (40%). Among those 148 persons, 10 patients were previously diagnosed with major depressive disorder by consultant psychiatrists with a percentage of 6.8% where 5 were females (5.6% of 89 females) and 5 were males (8.5% of 59 males).

The number of individuals who present for blepharoplasty operation with a history of Major Depressive disorder needs to take a special consideration. A link between MDD and cosmetic operation decision should be further studied.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

In the past few years, social media has gained a high popularity as a dynamic and interactive computer-mediated communication tools. Although it has become a part of everyday life for most of our clients, yet we did not have the opportunity to study its impact on compliance to therapy.

Assessment of impact of parallel social media group to dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills training group in a sample of Egyptian patients suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD).

The aim of the current study was to estimate impact of parallel social media group on compliance to DBT skills training group and its adverse events.

Patients with BPD enrolled to an outpatient comprehensive DBT program in Alexandria were assigned either to group (A) skills training, where a parallel Facebook group was crated aiming at increasing to compliance to the original group, or group (B) skills training alone and dropout rates were calculated based on completion of 6 months full skills training. We considered patients out of the group if they missed 4 sessions in a raw.

Two patients of 15 patients who joined group (A) missed four consecutive sessions with a dropout rate of 13%, whereas group (B) showed 43% drop out rate as 10 out of 23 patients did not complete the group. The difference was statistically significant. We reported only one privacy issue dealt with it immediately.

Utilization of social media group could lead to increase patient compliance to DBT skills training group.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive psycho-social treatment developed by Marsha Linehan and originally designed for persons meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT is considered as a standard evidence based treatment for suicidal BPD patients in most international guidelines. Although its effectiveness has been proved in multiple studies across different patient populations but almost all the research was conducted in North American or European countries. The current study was the first trial to apply DBT in Egypt with a different language and culture than where the treatment was originally developed.

Assessment of incidence of suicidal attempts and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among a sample of Egyptian BPD patients enrolled in an outpatient DBT program.

The aim of the current study was to estimate impact of comprehensive DBT on suicidal attempts and NSSI when applied to Egyptian BPD patients.

Twenty-five BPD patients, 4 males and 21 females, were included in a comprehensive outpatient DBT program for one year and incidence of suicidal attempts and NSSI were calculated.

Five patients only attempted suicide again with an incidence of 20% and a mean of one attempt/patient. Seven patients attempted NSSI with an incidence of 28%, an overall 22 incidents and a mean of 3 incidents/patient.

Although this was the first time to apply DBT in an Egyptian population, DBT proved to be an effective psycho-therapeutic intervention for suicidal BPD patients across regardless of different language or culture.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.