Verbal working memory span is decreased in patients with schizophrenia, and this might contribute to impairment in higher cognitive functions as well as to the formation of certain clinical symptoms. Processing speed has been identified as a crucial factor in cognitive efficiency in this population. We tested the hypothesis that decreased processing speed underlies the verbal working memory deficit in patients and mediates the associations between working memory span and clinical symptoms.

Forty-nine schizophrenia inpatients recruited from units for chronic and acute patients, and forty-five healthy participants, were involved in the study. Verbal working memory span was assessed by means of the letter-number span. The Digit Copy test was used to assess motor speed, and the Digit Symbol Substitution Test to assess cognitive speed.

The working memory span was significantly impaired in patients (F(1,90) = 4.6, P < 0.05). However, the group difference was eliminated when either the motor or the cognitive speed measure was controlled (F(1,89) = 0.03, P = 0.86, and F(1,89) = 0.03, P = 0.88). In the patient group, working memory span was significantly correlated with negative symptoms (r = –0.52, P < 0.0001) and thought disorganisation (r = –0.34, P < 0.025) scores. Regression analyses showed that the association with negative symptoms was no longer significant when the motor speed measure was controlled (β = –0.12, P = 0.20), while the association with thought disorganisation was no longer significant when the cognitive speed measure was controlled (β = –0.10, P = 0.26).

Decrement in motor and cognitive speed plays a significant role in both the verbal working memory impairment observed in patients and the associations between verbal working memory impairment and clinical symptoms.

As weight-gain and metabolic abnormalities during treatment with psychotropic drugs are of great concern, we evaluated effects of psycho-education and medical monitoring on metabolic changes among severely mentally ill patients.

During repeated, systematic psycho-education about general health among 66 consecutive patients diagnosed with DSM-IV-TR schizophrenia (n = 33) or type-I bipolar disorder (n = 33), we evaluated (at intake 1, 2, 3, and 6 months) clinical psychiatric status, treatments and doses, recorded physiological parameters, and assessed attitudes about medication.

At intake, patients with schizophrenia vs bipolar disorder were receiving 3–7 times more psychotropic medication, with 14% higher initial body-mass index (BMI: 29.1 vs 25.6 kg/m2), 12 times more obesity, and significantly higher serum lipid concentrations. During 6-months follow-up, among bipolar disorder patients, polytherapy and serum lipid concentrations declined more than among schizophrenia patients (e.g., total cholesterol + triglycerides, by 3.21 vs 1.75%/month). BMI remained stable. Declining lipid levels were associated with older age, bipolar disorder, being unemployed, higher antipsychotic doses, and lower initial BPRS scores (all P ≤ 0.001).

Psychotropic treatments were more complex, and metabolic measures more abnormal among bipolar disorder than schizophrenia patients. Intensive psycho-education, clinical monitoring, and encouragement of weight-control for six months were associated with improvements in metabolic measures (but not to BMI), and more realistic attitudes about medication.

The aim of this research, which represents an additional and longer follow-up to a previous trial, was to evaluate a 5-year follow-up study of a combined treatment (pharmacological + psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioral therapy) as compared with a standard pharmacological treatment in patients with refractory bipolar disorder.

Forty patients were randomly assigned to either an Experimental group–under combined treatment — or a Control group — under pharmacological treatment. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA), with repeated measures at different evaluation time points.

Between-group differences were significant at all evaluation time points after treatment. Experimental group had less hospitalization events than Control group in the 12-month evaluation (P = 0.015). The Experimental group showed lower depression and anxiety in the 6-month (P = 0.006; P = 0.019), 12-month (P = 0.001; P < 0.001) and 5-year (P < 0.001, P < 0.001) evaluation time points. Significant differences emerged in mania and misadjustment already in the post-treatment evaluation (P = 0.009; P < 0.001) and were sustained throughout the study (6-month: P = 0.006, P < 0.001; 12-month: P < 0.001, P < 0.001; 5-year: P = 0.004, P < 0.001). After 5-year follow-up, 88.9% of patients in the Control group and 20% of patients in the Experimental group showed persistent affective symptoms and/or difficulties in social-occupational functioning.

A combined therapy is long-term effective for patients with refractory bipolar disorder. Suggestions for future research are commented.

Sharing personal experiences and survival mechanisms about challenging conditions such as Autism on YouTube may be useful to other parents, educators, psychologists, and policy makers.

This study aimed at analysing YouTube videos of parents sharing their experiences about Autism and text comments posted by viewers.

During the period from 15 November to 15 December, 2012. YouTube was researched by three assessors for videos covering parents sharing their experiences about Autism. Only relevant videos in the English language were identified. For each video, the following information were collected: title, authors, duration, number of viewers, and total number of days on YouTube. Using criteria comprising content, technical authority and pedagogy parameters, videos were rated independently by three assessors and grouped into educationally useful and non-useful videos. A critical thematic analysis of comments posted on was conducted.

A total of 834 videos were screened and only 128 were found to be relevant to parents sharing their experience. Further analysis revealed that 105 (82.1%) provided useful information; scoring (mean ± SD, 15.5 ± 0.94). The other videos 23 (17.9%) were not useful educationally, scoring (11.9 ±2.87). The differences between these two categories were significant; p <0.001. An aggregate of 2393 text comments was posted to useful videos and 951 to non-useful videos.

Despite the variability in the quality of YouTube videos, there are good videos covering parents’ experiences about Autism that can be used by other parents, publics, and professional bodies. The comments made by viewers reflect the importance of the emerging social media tools such as YouTube in sharing experiences.

Prior studies to determine the economic consequences of schizophrenia have largely been undertaken in clinical settings with a small number of cases and have been unable to analyze effects across different age cohorts. The aim of this study is to investigate the burden of schizophrenia in Germany.

Costs, service utilization, and premature mortality attributable to schizophrenia were estimated for the year 2008 using a retrospective matched cohort design. Therefore, 26,977 control subjects as well as 9411 individuals with a confirmed diagnosis of schizophrenia were drawn from a sickness fund claims database. To reduce conditional bias, the non-parametric genetic matching method was employed.

The final study population comprised 8224 matched pairs. The annual cost attributable to schizophrenia was €11,304 per patient from the payers’ perspective and €20,609 from the societal perspective with substantial variations among age groups: direct medical expenses were highest among patients aged > 65 years, whereas younger individuals (< 25 years) incurred the greatest non-medical costs. The annual burden of schizophrenia from the perspective of German society ranges between €9.63 billion and €13.52 billion.

There are considerable differences in the distribution of costs and service utilization for schizophrenia. Because schizophrenia is characterized by an early age of onset and a long duration, research efforts should be targeted at particular populations to obtain the most beneficial outcomes, both clinically and economically.

Social withdrawal is among the first signs of the prodromal state of psychosis seen in clinical samples. The aim of this prospective study was to find out whether difficulty in making contact with others and social withdrawal precede first episode psychosis in the young general population.

The members of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (n = 6274) completed the PROD-screen questionnaire in 2001–2002. The Finnish Hospital Discharge Register was used to detect both new psychotic and non-psychotic disorders requiring hospitalisation during 2003–2008.

Twenty-three subjects developed psychosis and 89 developed a non-psychotic mental disorder requiring hospitalisation during the follow-up. Of those who developed psychosis, 35% had reported difficulty or uncertainty in making contact with others and 30% social withdrawal in adolescence. In hospitalised non-psychotic disorder, the corresponding precentages were 10 and 13% and in the control group without hospital-treated mental disorder 9 and 11%. The differences between psychotic and non-psychotic hospitalised subjects (P < 0.01) as well as controls (P < 0.001) were statistically significant regarding difficulty or uncertainty in making contact with others.

In this general population-based sample self-reported difficulty or uncertainty in making contact with others in adolescence preceded psychosis specifically compared to hospitalised non-psychotic mental disorders and controls.

Polymorphisms in the microRNA (miRNA) regulatory pathways are novel functional genetic variants whose association with alcoholism susceptibility has not been previously studied. Given the potential relationship between certain miRNAs and alcohol use disorders (AUDs), this study was designed to explore the association between two polymorphisms within hsa-miR-146a and hsa-miR-196a2 genes and susceptibility to these diseases.

Three hundred and one male patients with AUDs and 156 sex-matched healthy volunteers were enrolled. Polymorphisms were genotyped using TaqMan® PCR assays. Allele and genotype frequencies were compared between groups and logistic regression analysis was also performed to analyze the model of inheritance.

There was a significantly higher prevalence of allele C carriers (47.8%) of the miR-146a G>C polymorphism (rs2910164) among patients with AUDs when compared with controls (35.9%), and multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that the C allele was associated with these AUDs (OR = 1.615, 95% CI 1.067–2.442; P = 0.023). Neither the genotype nor the allele distribution of miR-196a2 polymorphism (rs11614913) was significantly different between groups.

This is the first genetic association study to explore the relationship of miRNA polymorphisms with AUDs and to show an association of the miR-146a C>G rs2910164 allelic variant with this disease.

Considerable data support phenomenological and temporal continuity between psychotic disorders and subclinical psychotic-like experiences (PLE's). Although numerous studies have found similar personality correlates for schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder patients, their unaffected first-degree relatives, and healthy adults characterized for schizotypal traits, no study has yet investigated personality correlates of PLE's measured by the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE). Our study sought to examine personality correlates of PLE's using the CAPE in healthy adults.

The CAPE and temperament and character inventory (TCI) were administered to 415 healthy adults. Regressions examined links between TCI traits and overall PLE levels as well as positive and negative PLE's separately.

Consistent with past studies, lower self-directedness (SD) and reward dependence (RD) and higher self-transcendence (ST) and harm avoidance (HA) significantly predicted overall PLE levels. Higher ST and persistence (P) and lower SD significantly predicted higher levels of positive PLE's while lower SD and RD and higher HA, ST, and cooperativeness (C) predicted higher levels of negative PLE's.

Associations between TCI and PLE's using the CAPE are strikingly similar to past work in non-clinical and patient samples and provide additional support for phenomenological continuity between psychotic disorders and sub-syndromal psychotic symptoms.

Depression symptoms contribute to significant morbidity and health care utilization. Healthcare reform should consider improvements in clinical outcomes as well as decreased overall utilization as mechanisms to control health care costs.

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of remission on outpatient clinical visits by depressed primary care patients in collaborative care management (CCM) or usual care (UC). The hypothesis was that depressed patients with worse outcomes at six months would have increased outpatient visit counts, regardless of treatment type.

The study was a retrospective, chart review analysis of 1,733 patients with six month follow-up data. The data set included baseline data (demographic information, diagnosis, medical comorbidity, prior outpatient visit counts and depression severity) and six month follow up data (PHQ-9 scores and number of outpatient visits utilized).

Multiple logistic regression demonstrated that remission at six months was an independent predictor of outpatient visit outlier status (>8 visits) (OR 0.609 CI 0.460-0.805, p<0.01), when controlling for all other independent variables. The odds ratio of being an outpatient visit outlier status for those patients NOT in remission at six months was the inverse of this at 1.643 (CI 1.243-2.173).

In primary care patients treated for depression, successful treatment to remission at six months decreased the likelihood of the patient having more than 8 visits during the six months after diagnosis. This holds true even when controlling for the individual patient's prior outpatient visit counts, health care comorbidities and enrollment into CCM vs. UC.

Certaines études ont retrouvé que la consommation précoce de cannabis était associée à une fréquence plus élevée de troubles cognitifs ou psychiatriques, mais l’âge exact reste indéterminé, entre 13 et 18 ans selon les études [1–4].

Comparer certaines caractéristiques cliniques des sujets dépendants au cannabis ayant commencé leur consommation à l’âge de 13 ans ou moins et celles de ceux qui ont commencé après.

Cent soixante-douze patients, consultant consécutivement dans le service d’Addictologie du CH Sainte-Anne pour dépendance au cannabis (critères DSM-IV), entre juin 2007 et juin 2013, ont été inclus dans l’étude. Les patients présentant des troubles psychotiques, bipolaires type 1, des dépendances opiacées ou à la cocaïne étaient exclus de l’étude. Ils ont été évalués à l’aide du Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies (DIGS).

Les sujets ayant commencé leur consommation de cannabis à l’âge de 13 ans (n = 37) ou moins présentaient plus fréquemment un diagnostic de trouble de personnalité antisociale (respectivement 58,8 % vs 22,1 % ; Chi2 = 16,6 p = 0,0001, OR : 4,9) et rapportaient plus fréquemment des troubles subjectifs de l’attention que les sujets ayant commencé leur consommation plus tard (n = 135) (respectivement 86,5 % vs 66,7 %, Chi2 = 5,53, p = 0,03, OR : 3,02). En revanche, il n’y avait pas de différences significatives entre les deux groupes concernant la fréquence des troubles dépressifs, des phobies sociales, des troubles anxieux, des conduites suicidaires, des traitements anxiolytiques ou antidépresseurs antérieurs, ni de différence au niveau des symptômes de sevrage et des effets subjectifs induits par le cannabis.

Les sujets dépendants au cannabis qui commencent leur consommation avant l’âge de 13 ans ont un risque de présenter un trouble de la personnalité antisociale cinq fois plus élevé et des troubles subjectifs de l’attention trois fois plus élevés, par rapport aux sujets qui commencent le cannabis après l’âge de 13 ans.

The available information on the cost of illness of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is overtly insufficient for policy planning. Our aim was to estimate the costs of illness for BPD in Catalonia (Spain) for 2006.

This is a multilevel cross-design synthesis study combining a qualitative nominal approach, quantitative ‘top-down’ analysis of multiple health databases, and ‘bottom-up’ data of local surveys. Both direct and indirect costs have been estimated from a governmental and societal perspective.

Estimated year-prevalence of BPD was 0.7% (41,921 cases), but only 9.6% of these cases were treated in the mental health system (4033 cases). The baseline of the total cost of BPD in Catalonia was 45.6 million €, of which 15.8 million € (34.7%) were direct costs related to mental health care. The cost distribution was 0.4% in primary care; 4% in outpatient mental health care; 4.7% in hospitalisation; 0.7% in emergency care; and 24.9% in pharmacotherapy. Additionally, the cost of drug addiction treatment for persons with BPD was 11.2%; costs associated with sheltered employment were 23.9% and those of crime and justice were 9.7%. Indirect costs – including temporary sick leave and premature death (suicide) – represented 20.5% of total costs. The average annual cost per patient was 11,308 €.

An under-reporting of BPD was identified by the experts in all health databases and official registries. Most of the BPD costs were not related to mental health care. Amongst the direct cost categories, pharmacotherapy had the largest proportion despite the lack of specificity for BPD. This distribution of costs reinforces the idea of BPD complexity related to an inadequate and inefficient use of health resources.