To identify the proportion of high-frequency users of the emergency department (ED) who have chronic pain.

We reviewed medical records of adult patients with ≥ 12 visits to a tertiary-care, academic hospital ED in Canada in 2012-2013. We collected the following demographics: 1) patient age and sex; 2) visit details – number of ED visits, inpatient admissions, length of inpatient admissions, diagnosis, and primary location of pain; 3) current and past substance abuse, mental health and medical conditions. Charts were reviewed independently by two reviewers. ED visits were classified as either “chronic pain” or “not chronic pain” related.

We analyzed 4,646 visits for 247 patients, mean age was 47.2 years (standard deviation = 17.8), and 50.2% were female. This chart review study found 38% of high-frequency users presented with chronic pain to the ED and that women were overrepresented in this group (64.5%). All high-frequency users presented with co-morbidities and/or mental health concerns. High-frequency users with chronic pain had more ED visits than those without and 52.7% were prescribed an opioid. Chronic abdominal pain was the primary concern for 54.8% of high-frequency users presenting with chronic pain.

Chronic pain, specifically chronic abdominal pain, is a significant driver of ED visits among patients who frequently use the ED. Interventions to support high-frequency users with chronic pain that take into account the complexity of patient's physical and mental health needs will likely achieve better clinical outcomes and reduce ED utilization.

Little is known about differential suicide profiles across the life trajectory. This study introduces the life-course method in suicide research with the aim of refining the longitudinal and cumulative assessment of psychosocial factors by quantifying accumulation of burden over time in order to delineate distinctive pathways of completed suicide.

The psychological autopsy method was used to obtain third-party information on consecutive suicides. Life-history calendar analysis served to arrive at an adversity score per 5-year segment that was then cluster-analysed and correlated to define victim profiles.

Two distinct life trajectories emerged: (1) individuals who experienced childhood traumas, developmental adversity and little protection were more likely to present concurrent psychiatric and Axis II disorders; and (2) individuals who experienced less adversity but seemed more reactive to later major difficulties.

The life calendar approach presented here in suicide research adds to the identification of life events, distal and recent, previously associated with suicide. It also quantifies the burden of adversity over the life course, defining two distinct profiles that could benefit from distinct targeted preventive intervention.

The dopamine D3 receptor gene (DRD3) is a meaningful candidate gene because it unifies the dopamine and the limbic hypotheses for schizophrenia. We tested for an allelic association between schizophrenia and the DRD3 Mscl alleles, hypothesising heterogeneity between childhood/early adolescence-onset schizophrenia (CO-SZ) and adult-onset schizophrenia (A-SZ).

The frequencies of the DRD3 alleles were compared between 70 DSM-III-R schizophrenics (35 CO-SZ and 35 A-SZ) and 79 controls.

Compared with the controls, the subsample of A-SZ, but not CO-SZ, showed an over-proportion (P = 0.025) of allele 1. The association was not found in the total sample, combining the two subsamples.

Consistently with former studies, our data suggest an aetiological heterogeneity between CO-SZ and A-SZ and a possible specificity of the excess of allele 1 to the familial form of schizophrenia and to schizophrenia with a better outcome.

Little is known about the long-term outcome of schizophrenia that has its onset during childhood and early adolescence (early-onset schizophrenia, or EO-SZ). Whether or not EO-SZ is an aetiologically separate form of schizophrenia (SZ) is unresolved.

The study was a 14.8-year follow-up, using methods such as systematic sampling, evaluation of possible non-respondent bias, consensus best-estimate diagnoses (DSM–III–R) made independently in childhood and adulthood, measures of positive and negative dimensions, of non-psychotic behaviour disturbances (NPBD) and of developmental problems before the appearance of SZ.

There was high stability of EO-SZ (n=40) diagnoses (mean onset at 14.0 years) until adulthood (mean age at follow-up 28.8 years) but a lower stability of positive and negative schizophrenic dimensions. There was a poor outcome of EO-SZ, a strong over-representation of males but few gender differences, and no effect of age of onset on clinical features and outcome.

EO-SZ taken as a whole shows no qualitative differences to adult-onset SZ. However, a distinction through the onset of preschizophrenic developmental problems or NPBD might be a way to investigate heterogeneity within EO-SZ.

The aim of this study was to verify the presence and stability across life of the positive/negative distinction in early-onset schizophrenia (EO-SZ) through a longitudinal factor analysis of the schizophrenic dimensions, and to identify the factors predicting several indices of long-term outcome for EO-SZ.

Forty children consecutively referred for DSM–III–R schizophrenia (SZ) in a specific catchment area comprised the sample.

Across a 14.8-year follow-up, longitudinal factor analysis identified two separate factors corresponding to the positive and negative symptom dimensions. We also observed that: the GAS rated over the last three years of adult illness and the severity of negative symptoms during the stabilised interepisode intervals in adulthood were the indices of adult outcome that were most easily predicted; and the best childhood predictors of adult outcome were premorbid functioning and severity of positive and negative symptoms during acute episodes.

The presence of premorbid non-psychotic behaviour disturbances (NPBD) and premorbid developmental problems was not related to severity of outcome, in contrast to the former variables.