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.

Patients with the deficit form of schizophrenia (D-SZ) are characterized by severe primary negative symptoms and differ from patients with the non-deficit form of schizophrenia (ND-SZ) in several aspects. No study has measured brain gyrification, which is a potential marker of neurodevelopment, in D-SZ and ND-SZ.

We obtained magnetic resonance scans from 135 schizophrenia patients and 50 healthy controls. The proxy scale for deficit syndrome (PDS) was used for the classification of D-SZ and ND-SZ. The local gyrification index (LGI) of the entire cortex was measured using FreeSurfer. Thirty-seven D-SZ and 36 ND-SZ patients were included in the LGI analyses. We compared LGI across the groups.

SZ patients exhibited hyper-gyral patterns in the bilateral dorsal medial prefrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, bilateral anterior cingulate gyri and right lateral parietal/occipital cortices as compared with HCs. Although patients with D-SZ or ND-SZ had higher LGI in similar regions compared with HC, the hyper-gyral patterns were broader in ND-SZ. ND-SZ patients exhibited a significantly higher LGI in the left inferior parietal lobule relative to D-SZ patients. Duration of illness inversely associated with LGI in broad regions only among ND-SZ patients.

The common hyper-gyral patterns among D-SZ and ND-SZ suggest that D-SZ and ND-SZ may share neurodevelopmental abnormalities. The different degrees of cortical gyrification seen in the left parietal regions, and the distinct correlation between illness chronicity and LGI observed in the prefrontal and insular cortices may be related to the differences in the clinical manifestations among D-SZ and ND-SZ.