Clinical practice guidelines for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder have been published. However, these have not had sufficient penetration in clinical settings. We developed the Effectiveness of Guidelines for Dissemination and Education in Psychiatric Treatment (EGUIDE) project as a dissemination and education programme for psychiatrists.

The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the EGUIDE project on the subjective clinical behaviour of psychiatrists in accordance with clinical practice guidelines before and 1 and 2 years after participation in the programmes.

A total of 607 psychiatrists participated in this study during October 2016 and March 2019. They attended both 1-day educational programmes based on the clinical practice guidelines for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, and answered web questionnaires about their clinical behaviours before and 1 and 2 years after attending the programmes. We evaluated the changes in clinical behaviours in accordance with the clinical practice guidelines between before and 2 years after the programme.

All of the scores for clinical behaviours in accordance with clinical practice guidelines were significantly improved after 1 and 2 years compared with before attending the programmes. There were no significant changes in any of the scores between 1 and 2 years after attending.

All clinical behaviours in accordance with clinical practice guidelines improved after attending the EGUIDE programme, and were maintained for at least 2 years. The EGUIDE project could contribute to improved guideline-based clinical behaviour among psychiatrists.

There is no widely used prognostic model for delirium in patients with advanced cancer. The present study aimed to develop a decision tree prediction model for a short-term outcome.

This is a secondary analysis of a multicenter and prospective observational study conducted at 9 psycho-oncology consultation services and 14 inpatient palliative care units in Japan. We used records of patients with advanced cancer receiving pharmacological interventions with a baseline Delirium Rating Scale Revised-98 (DRS-R98) severity score of ≥10. A DRS-R98 severity score of <10 on day 3 was defined as the study outcome. The dataset was randomly split into the training and test dataset. A decision tree model was developed using the training dataset and potential predictors. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve was measured both in 5-fold cross-validation and in the independent test dataset. Finally, the model was visualized using the whole dataset.

Altogether, 668 records were included, of which 141 had a DRS-R98 severity score of <10 on day 3. The model achieved an average AUC of 0.698 in 5-fold cross-validation and 0.718 (95% confidence interval, 0.627–0.810) in the test dataset. The baseline DRS-R98 severity score (cutoff of 15), hypoxia, and dehydration were the important predictors, in this order.

We developed an easy-to-use prediction model for the short-term outcome of delirium in patients with advanced cancer receiving pharmacological interventions. The baseline severity of delirium and precipitating factors of delirium were important for prediction.

Discontinuation of antipsychotics predisposes patients with remitted/stable first-episode psychosis (FEP) to a higher risk of relapse, but it remains unclear how long discontinuation increases the relapse rate in these patients compared with maintenance.

This meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) compared relapse rates in FEP patients between antipsychotic treatment discontinuation and maintenance groups at 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12 (primary), and 18–24 months. The risk ratio (RR) and numbers needed to treat/harm (NNT/NNH) were calculated using a random-effects model.

Ten RCTs were identified (n = 776; mean study duration, 18.6 ± 6.0 months). The antipsychotics were discontinued abruptly in four RCTs (which reported data only at 12 months) and after tapering off gradually over several months (mean length, 3 months) in six RCTs. Compared with the discontinuation group, the maintenance group experienced significantly fewer relapses at all time points except 1 month [RR (NNT): 2 months, 0.49 (13); 3 months, 0.46 (9); 6 months, 0.55 (6); 9 months, 0.48 (3); 12 months, 0.47 (3); and 18–24 months, 0.57 (4)]. The maintenance group was associated with higher discontinuation due to adverse events (RR, 2.61; NNH, not significant).

Maintaining antipsychotic treatment prevented relapse for up to 24 months in FEP patients. Discontinuation of antipsychotics for ⩾2 months significantly increased the risk of relapse. However, 45.7% of patients who discontinued antipsychotics for 12 months (39.4% after 18–24 months) did not experience a relapse.