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Objectives: Latin American longitudinal studies in family carers of people living with dementia (PLWD) are scarce. This study aimed to determine the trajectories of depressive and anxious symptomatology in Chilean family carers of PLWD over two years.
Methods: A telephone survey was conducted with 300 family caregivers of PLWD at baseline (T1) who responded to a survey about themselves, characteristics of the PLWD, and social factors. In the second wave, 208 carers participated (T2), and 155 in the third wave (T3). Latent Growth Curve and Latent Class Growth Mixture analyses were performed.
Results: Both depressive and anxious symptomatology increased significantly over time (p < 0.001). Ninety-five percent of carers, regardless of the level of depressive symptomatology at baseline, showed statistically significant trajectories of increase in depressive symptomatology (p < 0.001). In addition, 67% of carers (with low and high baseline levels) showed a significant progressive increase in anxious symptomatology (p < 0.005) and 33% remained at a moderate level of depressive symptomatology (p = 0.07). Finally, it was found that anxious symptomatology increased by 0.82 points more in women compared to men (p = 0.01).
Conclusions: The results emphasize the importance of ongoing screening for depressive and anxious symptomatology in carers over time, particularly in women. Health professionals in primary care should be capacitated to assess and offer timely and appropriate support to family carers of PLWD in order to improve their mental health. Finally, interventions for carers should be an essential part of national dementiaplans.
Crisis resolution teams (CRTs) are a crucial component of mental health care, providing timely support to individuals experiencing acute mental health crises. This abstract delves into the concept of crisis and seeks to identify the patients who stand to benefit from these specialized services.
Objectives
Defining crisis within the context of CRTs can be complex. It encompasses not only immediate emergencies but also broader mental health distress.
Research suggests that suitable candidates for CRT interventions are those facing acute mental health crises : This includes individuals experiencing suicidal ideation, severe agitation, or severe emotional distress.
La “Escala de Evaluación de Resolución de Crisis” (Crisis Resolution Team Assessment Tool, CRTAT) de Sonia Johnson es una herramienta diseñada para para medir la efectividad de los CRT y la duración de la intervención en crisis. Establece un límite de seis semanas como el período máximo durante el cual se debe ofrecer la atención en crisis.
Existen otras escalas de evaluación para medir la eficacia de la resolución de crisis:
1.Escala de Intensidad de Crisis (CIS): se utiliza para medir la gravedad de la crisis y la necesidad de intervención inmediata.
2.Escala de Evaluación de Crisis de Brage Hansen (BCES): se enfoca en la evaluación de crisis suicidas y evalúa la intensidad de la ideación suicida y la urgencia de la intervención.
3.Escala de Evaluación de Crisis de Eriksson (ECAS): Diseñada para evaluar la intensidad de la crisis en pacientes psiquiátricos, la ECAS se centra en la agitación, la ansiedad y la angustia emocional.
Methods
- Studies have explored the effectiveness of CRTs and the perspectives of service users. Understanding how patients perceive crisis and CRT services is crucial for tailoring interventions effectively.
Results
Conclusions
- CRTs play a vital role in mental health care, offering timely support to individuals experiencing crises. While defining crisis is complex, suitable candidates often include those in acute distress requiring immediate intervention. Understanding the perspectives of service users and the diverse nature of crisis experiences informs effective crisis resolution strategies.
“Cluster suicides,” also known as “suicide clusters,” refer to a phenomenon in which a series of suicides occur within a specific community, group, or geographic area within a relatively short period of time. These suicides often appear to be interconnected, either through imitation or contagion, and may involve individuals who have some form of social or emotional connection to each other.
Objectives
- Understanding the definition and characteristics of cluster suicides.
- Analyzing common risk factors and triggers in cluster suicide cases.
- Evaluating prevention and support strategies for affected individuals and communities.
Methods
We conduct an analysis of this concept based on a sample of suicides that occurred in a Spanish region over an 8-year period (2015-2022).
We will Analyzethe following aspects:
- Definition and characteristics of cluster suicides.
- Risk factors contributing to the occurrence of cluster suicides.
- Examples of real cases or case studies illustrating this phenomenon.
- The role of imitation and contagion in cluster suicides.
- Prevention and support strategies, including education on warning signs and access to mental health services.
- The impact of media coverage and how it can amplify the contagion effect.
- Measures to reduce access to lethal means of suicide.
Results
We will discuss about the results found:
- Definition and characteristics of cluster suicides.
- Risk factors contributing to the occurrence of cluster suicides.
- Examples of real cases or case studies illustrating this phenomenon.
- The role of imitation and contagion in cluster suicides.
- Prevention and support strategies, including education on warning signs and access to mental health services.
- The impact of media coverage and how it can amplify the contagion effect.
- Measures to reduce access to lethal means of suicide.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of our presentation are :
- The importance of recognizing cluster suicides as a real and concerning phenomenon.
- The need to address specific risk factors and triggers in affected communities.
- The effectiveness of prevention and support strategies in reducing cluster suicide cases.
- The importance of promoting media responsibility in suicide coverage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Cluster Suicides: A Critical Review and Theoretical Framework” (2019) - Este estudio proporciona una revisión crítica de la literatura sobre cluster suicides y presenta un marco teórico para comprender mejor este fenómeno
2.“Clusters of Suicides and Suicide Attempts: Identification, Prediction, and Prevention” (2016) - Aunque este estudio no se centra exclusivamente en España, ofrece información sobre la identificación y prevención de clusters de suicidio que puede ser relevante.
3.“Epidemiology of Suicide in Spain, 1981–2008” (2012) - Proporciona una visión general de la epidemiología del suicidio en España, lo que podría ayudar a contextualizar los estudios específicos sobre clusters.
While Percy Shelley anticipates and speaks to many important subjects of “our times,” he also developed a poetry and methodology for connecting and collaborating with peoples in other places and epochs. In this account, the editors reconsider Shelley’s often binaristic historical reception as both politically radical and childishly idealist, instead offering a version of the poet who continuously rethinks categories and relations among people and their times.
This chapter situates Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound in the sociopolitical contexts of the Romantic “age of exile.” It argues that the drama centers on what Shelley calls “sad exile,” a phrase that deliberately toggles between the archaic and traditional meanings of “sad” as both sorrowful and steadfast. In the play, sad exile registers as an ambivalent process that neither ends nor anticipates a return to a former state or place. Rather, it becomes fundamental to maintaining the renovated society’s mutually determined livelihood. As an ongoing re-visionary and recalibrating condition, this method of self-inquiry and critical distancing permits the drama’s key transformation from complicity to collaboration.
Two centuries after Percy Shelley's death, his writings continue to resonate in remarkable ways. Shelley addressed climate change, women's liberation, nonbinary gender, and political protest, while speaking to Indigenous, queer/trans, disabled, displaced, and working-class communities. He still inspires artists and social justice movements around the world today. Yet Percy Shelley for Our Times reveals an even more farsighted writer, one whose poetic methodology went beyond the didactic powers of prophetic art. Not historicist, presentist, or transhistorical, Shelley 'for our times' conceives worlds outside himself, his poetry, and his era, envisioning how audiences connect and collaborate across space and time. This collection revitalizes a writer once considered an adolescent of idealist protest, showing how his interwoven poetics of relationality continually revisits the meaning of community and the contemporary. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
High cognitive activity possibly reduces the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Aims
To investigate associations between an individual's need to engage in cognitively stimulating activities (need for cognition, NFC) and structural brain damage and cognitive functioning in the Dutch general population with and without existing cognitive impairment.
Method
Cross-sectional data were used from the population-based cohort of the Maastricht Study. NFC was measured using the Need For Cognition Scale. Cognitive functioning was tested in three domains: verbal memory, information processing speed, and executive functioning and attention. Values 1.5 s.d. below the mean were defined as cognitive impairment. Standardised volumes of white matter hyperintensities (WMH), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and presence of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) were derived from 3T magnetic resonance imaging. Multiple linear and binary logistic regression analyses were used adjusted for demographic, somatic and lifestyle factors.
Results
Participants (n = 4209; mean age 59.06 years, s.d. = 8.58; 50.1% women) with higher NFC scores had higher overall cognition scores (B = 0.21, 95% CI 0.17–0.26, P < 0.001) and lower odds for CSVD (OR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.60–0.91, P = 0.005) and cognitive impairment (OR = 0.60, 95% CI 0.48–0.76, P < 0.001) after adjustment for demographic, somatic and lifestyle factors. The association between NFC score and cognitive functioning was similar for individuals with and without prevalent cognitive impairment. We found no significant association between NFC and WMH or CSF volumes.
Conclusions
A high need to engage in cognitively stimulating activities is associated with better cognitive functioning and less presence of CSVD and cognitive impairment. This suggests that, in middle-aged individuals, motivation to engage in cognitively stimulating activities may be an opportunity to improve brain health.
Late-life depression has been associated with volume changes of the hippocampus. However, little is known about its association with specific hippocampal subfields over time.
Aims
We investigated whether hippocampal subfield volumes were associated with prevalence, course and incidence of depressive symptoms.
Method
We extracted 12 hippocampal subfield volumes per hemisphere with FreeSurfer v6.0 using T1-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery 3T magnetic resonance images. Depressive symptoms were assessed at baseline and annually over 7 years of follow-up (9-item Patient Health Questionnaire). We used negative binominal, logistic, and Cox regression analyses, corrected for multiple comparisons, and adjusted for demographic, cardiovascular and lifestyle factors.
Results
A total of n = 4174 participants were included (mean age 60.0 years, s.d. = 8.6, 51.8% female). Larger right hippocampal fissure volume was associated with prevalent depressive symptoms (odds ratio (OR) = 1.26, 95% CI 1.08–1.48). Larger bilateral hippocampal fissure (OR = 1.37–1.40, 95% CI 1.14–1.71), larger right molecular layer (OR = 1.51, 95% CI 1.14–2.00) and smaller right cornu ammonis (CA)3 volumes (OR = 0.61, 95% CI 0.48–0.79) were associated with prevalent depressive symptoms with a chronic course. No associations of hippocampal subfield volumes with incident depressive symptoms were found. Yet, lower left hippocampal amygdala transition area (HATA) volume was associated with incident depressive symptoms with chronic course (hazard ratio = 0.70, 95% CI 0.55–0.89).
Conclusions
Differences in hippocampal fissure, molecular layer and CA volumes might co-occur or follow the onset of depressive symptoms, in particular with a chronic course. Smaller HATA was associated with an increased risk of incident (chronic) depression. Our results could capture a biological foundation for the development of chronic depressive symptoms, and stresses the need to discriminate subtypes of depression to unravel its biological underpinnings.
Although some studies have reported that case management (CM), when is compared with standard care, reduces the loss of contact with health services, the debate continues about its superiority over other treatment models.
Objectives
To assess treatment adherence and reasons for treatment discontinuation, and the impact of the type of APs administration on it, for a group of patients with schizophrenia treated in a CMP or receiving standard treatment in mental health units (MHUs).
Methods
An observational, longitudinal study (ten-year follow-up) was conducted on 688 patients with severe schizophrenia (CGI-S ≥ 5). All the causes of the end of treatment were recorded, together with the AP medication prescribed and kind of regimes.
Results
43.6% of the patients had discontinued treatment in MHUs and only 12.1% on the CMP (p < 0.0001). 27.6% of patients in MHUs were on long-acting injectables (LAIs), and 57.6 on the CMP (p < 0.001). Treatment discontinuation was closely linked to be on OAPs medication in both cases (p < 0.001).Table 1.
Treatment discontinuation, hospital admissions and suicide attempts [N(%)]
N= 688
MHU (N=344)
CMP (N= 344)
P value
Treatment discontinuation
290 (84.3)
42 (12.2)
<0.00001
OAP
LAI
OAP
LAI
Treatment discontinuation
180(52.3)
90(26.2)a
34(9.9)
8(2.3)b
Hospital admissions
260 (75.6)
80 (23.5)
<0.001
OAP
LAI
OAP
LAI
Hospital admissions
180 (52.3)
80 (23.5)a
65 (18.9)
15 (4.4)b
Suicide attempts
134 (38.9)
26 (7.7)
<0.0001
OAP
LAI
OAP
LAI
Suicide attempts
160(46.5)
74(21.5)a
18(5.2)
8(2.3)b
a: p<0.01 b: p<0.001 N: number of patients %: percentage of patients
MHU: mental health unit CMP: case managed programme
AP: antipsychotic FGA, SGA: first, second generation antipsychotic
Our findings show how specific strategies as programs with an integrated treatment and case-managed approach, increase adherence. Moreover, treating with LAI APs clearly contributes to the achievement of these results. The widespread implementation of comprehensive community programs with case management, and the use of LAI-APs, should be an effective choice for people with schizophrenia and clinical severity and impairment, and at high risk of treatment discontinuation.
To determine risk factors for the development of long coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in healthcare personnel (HCP).
Methods:
We conducted a case–control study among HCP who had confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 working in a Brazilian healthcare system between March 1, 2020, and July 15, 2022. Cases were defined as those having long COVID according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition. Controls were defined as HCP who had documented COVID-19 but did not develop long COVID. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess the association between exposure variables and long COVID during 180 days of follow-up.
Results:
Of 7,051 HCP diagnosed with COVID-19, 1,933 (27.4%) who developed long COVID were compared to 5,118 (72.6%) who did not. The majority of those with long COVID (51.8%) had 3 or more symptoms. Factors associated with the development of long COVID were female sex (OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.05–1.39), age (OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00–1.02), and 2 or more SARS-CoV-2 infections (OR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.07–1.50). Those infected with the SARS-CoV-2 δ (delta) variant (OR, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.17–0.50) or the SARS-CoV-2 o (omicron) variant (OR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.30–0.78), and those receiving 4 COVID-19 vaccine doses prior to infection (OR, 0.05; 95% CI, 0.01–0.19) were significantly less likely to develop long COVID.
Conclusions:
Long COVID can be prevalent among HCP. Acquiring >1 SARS-CoV-2 infection was a major risk factor for long COVID, while maintenance of immunity via vaccination was highly protective.
Individuals with depression have an increased dementia risk, which might be due to modifiable risk factors for dementia. This study investigated the extent to which the increased risk for dementia in depression is explained by modifiable dementia risk factors.
Methods
We used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2008–2009 to 2018–2019), a prospective cohort study. A total of 7460 individuals were included [mean(standard deviation) age, 65.7 ± 9.4 years; 3915(54.7%) were women]. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-8 (score ≥3) or self-reported doctor's diagnosis. Ten modifiable risk factors for dementia were combined in the ‘LIfestyle for BRAin health’ (LIBRA) score. Dementia was determined by physician diagnosis, self-reported Alzheimer's disease or the shortened version of the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (average score ≥3.38). Structural equation modelling was used to test mediation of LIBRA score.
Results
During 61 311 person-years, 306 individuals (4.1%) developed dementia. Participants aged 50–70 years with depressive symptoms had higher LIBRA scores [difference(s.e.) = 1.15(0.10)] and a 3.59 times increased dementia risk [HR(95% CI) = 3.59(2.20–5.84)], adjusted for age, sex, education, wealth and clustering at the household level. In total, 10.4% of the dementia risk was mediated by differences in LIBRA score [indirect effect: HR = 1.14(1.03–1.26)], while 89.6% was attributed to a direct effect of depressive symptoms on dementia risk [direct effect: HR = 3.14(2.20–5.84)].
Conclusions
Modifiable dementia risk factors can be important targets for the prevention of dementia in individuals with depressive symptoms during midlife. Yet, effect sizes are small and other aetiological pathways likely exist.