Psychiatric emergencies are often accompanied by behavioral disturbances that interfere with normal assessment and call for immediate intervention. Different pharmacological treatment regimens have been used for this purpose. Most of these regimens are based upon common clinical practice and have limited evidence base. Recently, a major publication by experts in the field of emergency psychiatry has covered this topic and the therapeutic armamentarium has been extended with the atypical antipsychotics. However, research is still hampered by different methodological limitations: unclear definition of the agitated state and therapeutic goal, idiosyncratic measurement, small sample sizes. The perspective of the patient and the interaction between the emergency care setting and treatment regimen also need further attention. All these important, but often neglected issues are covered in a selective review of the literature.

Daily social behavior and negative affect were examined in a sample of individuals with a wide spectrum of psychosis-proneness scores. Using the experience sampling method, participants were signaled five times per day for a 1-week period to provide naturalistic reports of location, activity, and social behavior. Little evidence was found for a direct association between psychosis-proneness and specific behavioral profiles, but individuals with higher scores of psychosis-proneness reported spending more time doing nothing or waiting. However, the levels of anxious and depressed moods experienced in certain social and environmental contexts were also predicted by psychosis-proneness scores. The present results indicate that psychosis-proneness was associated with an increase in anxiety when individuals were with friends and an increase in depressed mood in daily task situations such as working or studying. By contrast, psychosis-proneness predicted a decrease in depressed and anxious moods in other situations when the individual was not likely to be confronted by social contact with less known individuals, and lower anxious and depressed moods when in secure environments (in one's own home, home of family or friends). The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of understanding the expression of psychosis vulnerability and the potential reinforcement of maladaptive social behavior through operant conditioning mechanisms.

Background. – The cross-sectional clinical differentiation of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from mood-incongruent psychotic mania or mixed mania is difficult, since pathognomonic symptoms are lacking in these conditions.

Aims of the study. – To compare a series of clinical variables related to mood and cognition in patient groups with DSM-III-R diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, mood-incongruent psychotic mania and mood-incongruent psychotic mixed mania.

Methods. – One hundred and fifty-one consecutive patients were evaluated in the week prior to discharge by using the structured clinical interview for DSM-III-R-patient edition (SCID-P). Severity of psychopathology was assessed by the 18-item version of the brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and negative symptoms by the scale for assessment of negative symptoms (SANS). Level of insight was assessed with the scale to assess unawareness of mental disorders (SUMD).

Results. – There were no differences in rates of specific types of delusions and hallucinations between subjects with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychotic mania and psychotic mixed mania. SANS factors scores were significantly higher in patients with schizophrenia than in the bipolar groups. Patients with mixed state scored significantly higher on depression and excitement compared to schizophrenia group and, to a lesser extent, to schizoaffective group. Subjects with schizophrenia showed highest scores on the SUMD indicating that they were much more compromised on the insight dimension than subjects with psychotic mania or mixed mania.

Conclusion. – Negative rather than affective symptomatology may be a useful construct to differentiate between schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders from mood-incongruent psychotic mania or mixed mania.

Appraisal of caregiving and its relationship to family burden and experienced mental health problems in the relatives were investigated as part of a multi-centre study of the quality of mental health services in Sweden performed in 1997. The sample was drawn from relatives of involuntarily and voluntarily admitted patients to acute psychiatric wards. The instrument used was a semi-structured questionnaire, interviewing relatives about the burden, experience of mental health problems and appraisal of the caregiving situation. The results showed a high proportion of relatives engaged in caregiving activities on a daily basis the month before the patient's admission to hospital and a high proportion of relatives appraising the caregiving activities negatively. The burden was more extensive if the relative and the patient were living together, had a longer duration of their relationship, if the relative was rendering caregiving on a daily basis and if the relative appraised caregiving negatively. The relatives' psychological distress was not related to their negative appraisal of caregiving, nor was patient characteristics, such as diagnosis and level of psychosocial functioning. The only factor found to influence the relatives' psychological distress was the duration of relationship to the patient. Interventions reducing psychological distress for relatives who have known the patients for more than 20 years, who live with the patient, who give care on a daily basis and who appraise their caregiving negatively are suggested.

The aim of this review is to summarize the present state of findings on altered neurotrophic factor levels in schizophrenic psychoses, on variations in genes coding for neurotrophic factors, and on the effect of antipsychotic drugs on the expression level of neurotrophic factors. This is a conceptual paper that aims to establish the link between the neuromaldevelopment theory of schizophrenia and neurotrophic factors. An extensive literature review has been done using the Pub Med database, a service of the National Library of Medicine, which includes over 14 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. The majority of studies discussed in this review support the notion of alterations of neurotrophic factors at the protein and gene level, respectively, and support the hypothesis that these alterations could, at least partially, explain some of the morphological, cytoarchitectural and neurobiochemical abnormalities found in the brain of schizophrenic patients. However, the results are not always conclusive and the clinical significance of these alterations is not fully understood. It is, thus, important to further neurotrophic factor research in order to better understand the etiopathogenesis of schizophrenic psychoses and, thus, potentially develop new treatment strategies urgently needed for patients suffering from these devastating disorders.

Having a diagnosis of schizophrenia is a risk factor for involuntary admission to psychiatric inpatient care, but we have a limited understanding of why some patients and not others require involuntary admission. We aimed to identify the predictors of involuntary admission in first episode schizophrenia. We used validated instruments to assess clinical and socio-demographic variables in all patients (n = 78) with first episode schizophrenia from a defined geographical area admitted to a Dublin psychiatric hospital over a 4-year period. Involuntary patients (n = 17) could not be distinguished from voluntary patients (n = 61) on the basis of age, gender, living status, marital status, drug abuse or duration of untreated psychosis. Neither positive nor negative symptoms were useful predictors of admission status. Lack of insight was a strong predictor of involuntary status.

We applied the temperament and character inventory (TCI) personality questionnaire in 41 inpatients dependent on metamphetamine, and 35 controls. Novelty seeking, harm avoidance and self-transcendence were significantly higher, and persistence, self-directedness and cooperativeness were significantly lower in the patients than in the healthy volunteers. The detected differences may be important for prevention and treatment.

Somatic symptoms and anxiety symptoms are often disregarded in the detection of depression in primary care. The present investigation examined to what extent somatic and anxiety symptoms recorded with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview—Primary Health Care Version (CIDI—PHC) can improve the detection of depression as compared to the General Health Questionnaire—12-item version alone. Data from the World Health Organization study on Psychological Problems in General Health Care were used. The study sample consisted of primary care attenders from 15 centres from all over the world who underwent a psychiatric examination with the CIDI—PHC. Medically unexplained somatic symptoms (back pain, feelings of heaviness/lightness in parts of the body, periods of bodily weakness, seizures/convulsions, permanent tiredness, exhaustion after a minimum of effort) and—to a smaller extent—diverse anxiety symptoms (e.g. feelings of anxiousness/nervousness, feelings of tension, difficulties relaxing) significantly contributed to the detection of depression in a logistic regression analysis. The results confirm the observation that in primary care somatic symptoms play an important role in the manifestation of depressive disorders. The items investigated herein could prove beneficial for future depression screening instruments to improve the detection of depressive disorders in primary care.

Recent years has seen an increasing interest in the hallucinatory experience, including investigations of its phenomenological prevalence and character both in pathological and normal (predisposed) populations. We investigated the multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory experiences in 265 subjects from the normal population, who completed a modified version of the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale. Principal components analysis was performed on the data. Four factors were obtained loading on items reflecting (1) sleep-related hallucinatory experiences (2) vivid daydreams (3) intrusive thoughts or realness of thought and (4) auditory hallucinations. The results offer further evidence of the multi-dimensionality of hallucinatory disposition in the normal population. Directions for future research in hallucinatory predisposition are discussed.

This study examined the dimensions of burden perceived by key-relatives of patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorder by the development of an instrument, the Family Burden Scale (FBS) and the underlying predictors. One hundred and seventy one primary caregivers, living with 158 patients suffering from chronic psychotic illness and maintained on community basis in Athens area, were interviewed by the use of FBS supplemented by the Family Atmosphere Scale and GHQ. Construction procedure and factor analysis of FBS produced a scale of 23 items in four factors, three of them measuring objective and the fourth one, subjective burden. The scale was also proved to be reliable and valid. Forty-five percent of primary caregivers reported high levels of burden. Psychological impairment (high GHQ scores) was related with high levels of burden and negative family atmosphere. Previous admissions and duration of illness were also found to predict burden. The results suggest that FBS differentiates objective from subjective burden. Psychological well being of carers is affected by the dimensions of perceived burden.