Over the last few years, there has been increased interest in the addictive potential of the internet. The current study was an attempt to replicate common findings in the literature and provide more evidence for the existence of internet addiction among school students - a population considered to be especially vulnerable.

Studies of general internet users suggest that some children's may experience psychological problems such as social isolation, depression, loneliness, and time mismanagement related to their internet use and failure at school.

All of the students (N = 650) came from 7 gymnasium schools and 6 high schools of Iasi, Romania. The students answered to a questionnaire comprising 34 questions related to computer activities. These were aimed at highlighting: 1. The frequency of internet use by the students; 2. The identification of a psychological problems; 3. Identification of a possible internet addiction.

Results show that the school students prefer to spend a considerable amount of time with their computers, over 5 hours/day. The purpose of this article is to describe how internet use affect socialization, academic performance, personality and to discuss how identity are constructed in cyberspace.

Excessive amounts of time at a computer can contribute to undeveloped social skills and a form of addictive behaviour, and failure at school. Internet addiction is marked by symptoms of increasing tolerance, withdrawal, mood changes, and interruption of social relationships. The results show that the parents don't recognize internet addiction.

Computer and Internet use by children and adolescents is widespread and begins at an early age. They commonly use computers for playing games, completing school assignments, email, and connecting to the Internet. On-line, the most frequent activities are school work, email, games, and finding information. We investigated factors that influence adolescents' engagement in risky Internet behavior, in particular the factors relating to development identity.

All the students, aged between 15 to 18 years old, come from 7 high schools of Iasi. The authors examined the online construction of identity at 283 teenagers, who had been involved in an online activities and completed a survey to assess relationships among development identity and (a) amount of Internet use (with the identification of a possible computer addiction), (b) the interference of excessive use with school grades and social life;

Results indicated that the following factors were found to be predictors of adolescents development: frequency of Internet use, frequency of chatting, parental rules, type of personal information given out, amount of inappropriate messages received, whether inappropriate websites have been visited, and type of internet advice heard.

Our results showed a significant positive correlation between measures of Internet use and time spent online for the Internet. Implications for and development as impacted by social support networks, are discussed. Finally, Internet use was associated with identity status. These results suggest that the Internet may be an important aid for teenager as they searched for an young identity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate issues related to clinical analysis of patients with IAD (internet addiction disorder), we focusing on clinical, demographic features, and comorbidities.

The survey included a representative sample of 543 school students of ages 11 to 18. All of the students answered to a questionnaire comprising 36 questions related to computer activities. Ten girls and 22 boys constituted the sample of Internet addicts. All participants were diagnosed based on psychiatric diagnostic interview and psychiatric scales.

Clinical diagnoses included depression 25%, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder 18,75%, social fobia 15,62%, generalized anxiety disorder 12,5%, obsessive compulsive disorder 6,25%, comportamental disorder 15,62%, 6,25% met criteria for eating disorder. Severity measures of IAD were associated with higher perception of family disability (P ≤ .001)

With these results, it seems reasonable to suggest that effective evaluation of, and treatment for comorbidities disorders is required for students with Internet addiction. Effective management of psychiatric symptoms may indirectly correct pathological Internet use.

The need for information about the effects of computers on their users also increases. The purpose of this study is to investigate how computers are use by children and adolescents. The second goal is to explore the beneficial and harmful effects of computers use on children's mental and physical health.

The studied group of samples comprised 69 subjects, aged between 13 and 18 years, who answered to a questionnaire. The parents of children answered too another questionnaire whit same subject.

The results were obtained about computers use and identification pathological use. Some the children spend much time to computers, 4% more five hours/day. 41% of the parents believe that the usage computers are favorable to developmental children's mental and physical health and 49% of the parents don't believe that. We find approximately 3,5% of cases with pathological use.

To investigate the behavioral and cognitive effects of memantine in moderate to severe patients with Alzheimer disease receiving donepezil.

Study was a 24 weeks prospective, randomized, parallel group. 43 patients were enrolled in the study, 21 continued treatment with donepezil and 22 were randomized to donepezil and memantine treatment. Patients were at least 50 years old, receiving ongoing therapy with donepezil for at least 6 months (10 mg / day). Average age for both groups was 72.5 years. There were no significant imbalances between the treatment groups in demographic and baseline clinical characteristics. Cognitive, ADL, and global measures were collected at baseline and at the end of weeks 4, 8, 12, 18 and 24. Behavioral measures were obtained at baseline, at the end of week 12 and at week 24. Mean baseline MMSE scores were 15.2 for donepezil group and 14.9 for donepezil – memantine group. Mean baseline NPI scores were of 15.8 for the donepezil group and 16.4 for the donepezil – memantine group.

Patients treated with donepezil – memantine had significantly lower NPI total scores than patients treated only with donepezil. Analyses of the 12 NPI domains revealed significant effects in favor of memantine on agitation / aggression, eating / appetite, and irritability / lability. Memantine - treated patients showed significantly less deterioration in their functionality. The Severe Impairment Battery showed significant differences favoring memantine – donepezil group.

Treatment with memantine was well tolerated and reduced agitation / aggression, irritability, and appetite eating disturbances.

The need for information about the effects of computers on their users also increases.

All the students, aged between 15 to 18 years old, come from 7 high schools of Iasi, Romania. The studied group of samples comprised 350 teenagers who answered to a questionnaire comprising 36 questions related to computer activities. The authors examined the online construction of identity and sexuality at 350 teenagers, who had been involved in an online relationship and (a) the identification of a possible Internet addiction, (b) perceived realism of the Internet, and (c) construction of network identities.

The survey reveal that amount of time spent online for the Internet are positively related to more favorable perceptions of online relationships. We find approximately 3.5% of cases with possible pathological Internet use.

Having an identity and having a network identity are different subjects.

Tobacco use and dependence is a chronic relapsing disease, due to nicotine in tobacco.

To assess smoking cessation rates and compliance to a smoking cessation program in moderate tobacco consumers with low and moderate nicotine dependence score.

Analysis of demographic variables, smoking profile, nicotine dependence score, type of cigarettes smoked, past history of nicotine withdrawal syndrome and medical history was performed. Patients underwent either pharmacological therapy and counselling, either counselling alone for 3 months. 6 months follow up based on face to face or telephonic evaluation was done to assess smoking abstinence rates.

Study group was made of 124 moderate smokers (40 % men, age average 31.2) referred to a smoking cessation center in the Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases Iasi in 2007-2009. While 31.2 % had low nicotine dependence (Fagerstrom scores < 3) and 40% moderate dependence (score 4-7) psychiatric co-morbidities were met in 12 % and 40 % of subjects described nicotine withdrawal history. 38.8% started smoking under the age of 14 and 30 % prefered nonfiltered or menthol cigarettes. 71.2 % of the study group underwent pharmacological therapy. Abstinence rate was 30 % at 3 months end of treatment and 12.5 % at 6 months.

Even if low or moderate cigarette consumption and low - moderate nicotine dependence score, quitting smoking may be difficult due to specific smoking patterns in this category of smokers, resulting in unexpected low abstinence rates.

Sleep disturbance is common among patients with Parkinson's disease and occurs in approximately two thirds of patients.

The main objective of this study was to examine the prevalence of sleep disturbances in patients with Parkinson's disease in Romania.

To asses risk factors associated with excessive daytime sleepiness and nocturnal sleep disorders.

44 consecutive inpatients with Parkinson's disease (41% females) were included in a study of non-motor symptoms, including sleep disturbances. All participants responded to the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale (PDSS), where an overall score below 82 or a score below 5 on a sub-item indicate sleep disturbances. Factors associated with sleep were also investigated, with special emphasis on severity of Parkinson's disease, fatigue, mental health and restless legs syndrome (RLS).

The mean age was 67.8 years (range 35-74); the mean Hoehn and Yahr stage was 2.4 (SD 0.8), and the mean UPDRS part III was 22.6 (SD 11.5). Sleep disturbances were common among patients with Parkinson's disease. While only 17% of the sample had an overall score below 82 on the PDSS, 70% of the patients had a score below 5 on one item. There was no significant association between Parkinson's disease severity and any of the sleep items in the PDSS.

The current findings call for increased awareness of sleep problems in patients with Parkinson's disease, especially focusing on the association with mental health problems, fatigue and RLS.

Bipolar disorder is a recurrent disease that can be unpredictable. Several guides provide clinicians evidence- based treatment options for bipolar depression.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the most frequently administered combinations of psychotropic substances and focuses on the use of single drugs in hospitalized patients with bipolar depression.

To assess concordance between clinical acute treatment and recommendations of the guides for bipolar depression.

A cross-sectional study was conducted by interviewing and physical examination of a group of 45 consecutive patients who were hospitalized between February 1 and 30 July 2012, in University Hospital of Psychiatry “Socola” and were diagnosed with bipolar depression according to ICD-10 criteria.

In our cross-sectional study average age of patients with bipolar depression was 55.7 ± 8.55 years, 66.7% female. Average number of drugs received by hospitalized patients with bipolar depression was 1.73 (SD 0.44), which increased to 3 (SD 0.81) drugs if adding sedatives. Classes of drugs most commonly prescribed in the acute treatment were benzodiazepines 86.7%, antidepressants 66.7%, antipsychotics 60% followed by anticonvulsants 40%. Monotherapy had a prevalence of 33.3% of the patients with bipolar depression.

Combinations of antidepressants with mood stabilizers and / or atypical antipsychotics are common in every day acute treatment for patients with bipolar depression. Evaluating indications and conditions of polytherapy are critical issues in future studies on the acute treatment on patients with bipolar depression.

Schizophrenia represents a risk factor for violent behavior, even escalating to murder.

The current study aims to provide information regarding the prevalence and types of criminal acts committed by schizophrenic patients and identifying the precipitating factors.

The purpose of this study is to obtain an overall view on the peculiarity of criminal behavior in schizophrenic patients in order to create efficient means of prediction and prevention.

The current study collected all the data from Medline PubMed, from articles published between 2004-2014, by searching key words like violent behavior, schizophrenia, schizophrenia and criminality.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are usually associated with a substantially increased rate of violent crimes, in comparison to the general population. The risk factors include the same as in the general population, with a social and family background, and also specific risk factors found in schizophrenic patients like delusional and hallucinatory elements which drive patients to perform criminal actions.

The criminal behavior manifested in schizophrenic patients shows certain features, especially at a motivational level, emphasizing the need for the early detection of delusional and hallucinatory symptoms that drive patients to do act of crimes, in a close relationship to the social cultural and also family context that creates their background.

Tobacco smoking rate is high (21%) among Romanian adolescents.

To assess youngsters attitudes and beliefs towards tobacco dependence, their compliance to smoking cessation interventions and success rate of a standard smoking cessation program.

231 subjects participated in the Adolescent Smoking Cessation (ASC) pilot program. Subjects were evaluated based on the ASC questionnaire, a validated set of questions about personal data, nicotine addiction profile, willingness to involve in ASC whether current smoker or not. Smoking status was validated by carbon monoxide determination in exhaled air. Participants were delivered 6 interactive ASC sessions about smoking hazards and methods to quit smoking. A final evaluation was done to assess program's impact and to reward quitters and reducers by prizes.

Study group was made of 52.4% every day smokers, 10.4% at least once/week but not every day smokers, 6% less than once/week smokers, 23.4% never smokers and 7.8% ex-smokers. Abstinence rate was 12.3% in every day smokers and 16.6 % in at least once a week but not every day smokers. The program registered a high attendance rate/sessions as 85.2 % of subjects were present in all sessions. Also, significant changes occured in participants beliefs about addiction to tobacco, as evaluated by standard personal smoking and cessation beliefs questionnaire.

ASC was appreciated as an efficient program with 12.3% of daily smokers to quit smoking and its positive impact on personal nicotine addiction beliefs in 90 % of participants.

Bipolar patients have a high risk for somatic comorbidities that need to be treated by non-psychiatrist medics. Factors related to unhealthy lifestyle, disease and treatment may confer some additional risk of morbidity in people with bipolar disorder.

The primary endpoint of the study was to detect risk factors for the development of somatic comorbidities in patients with bipolar disorder.

To identify somatic comorbidities in patients with bipolar disorder and to allow appropriate treatment to improve their quality of life.

The study was conducted by interviewing and physical examination of a group of 21 consecutive patients who were hospitalized between 1 to 28 February 2011 in the Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry “Socola” Iasi and were diagnosed with bipolar disorder according to DSM-IV-TR criteria.

Patients age range was 24 to 58 years. Of the subjects 57.1% were female and 42.9% men. The study shows that 38.1% of patients with bipolar disorder smoked regularly, and 47.6% consumed alcohol abusively. The most common somatic diseases associated were dyslipidemia 57.1%, obesity 52.4%, hypertension 38.1%, type 2 diabetes mellitus 33.3%, pulmonary disease 19.0%, hypertensive heart disease 28.6%, peripheral sensory polyneuropathy 23.8%, liver disease 15.3%, and angina pectoris 14.3%. Metabolic syndrome criteria were met in 33.3% of the patients.

The patients with bipolar disorders showed a high proportion of alcohol abuse and smoking. Most somatic diseases recorded were related to metabolic syndrome and other disturbances typically caused by unhealthy diet and lifestyle.

Smokers with psychiatric comorbidities are prevalent in our current practice. Varenicline (Champix) is a first line pharmacotherapy indicated to treat nicotine addiction.

To assess efficacy and safety of varenicline in current practice of a smoking cessation center treating smokers with high prevalence of psychiatric disorders.

128 smokers with concurrent stable psychiatric, respiratory or cardiovascular disorders (study group) and 124 healthy smokers (control group) were treated with varenicline and counseling, for 12 weeks to stop smoking. Abstinence rate was assessed in both groups at 12 weeks. Varenicline safety, cessation profile and compliance to treatment were monitored in psychiatric disorders smokers compared to other co-morbidities and to controls.

54.6 % smokers with comorbidities (12/22 cardiovascular, 14/30 respiratory, 44/76 psychiatric) and 33.8 % healthy smokers successfully quit smoking. Withdrawal symptoms and adverse effects picture did not differ significantly between groups. The figure shows compliance to treatment and number of adverse events in healthy and psychiatric, respiratory and cardiovascular disease smokers.

Smokers with psychiatric co-morbidities achieved a higher abstinence rate, compared to respiratory and cardiovascular disease smokers and to control group. Varenicline proved comparable safety in both study and control groups.<a name="_GoBack"></a>

Depression and apathy are among the most common psychiatric and behavioral disorders associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD). This two psychiatric disorders are major determinants of quality of life for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

The main objective of this study was to establish the prevalence and demographic and clinical correlates of depression and apathy in a sample of inpatients with Parkinson’s disease.

To identify depression and apathy in a group of patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and to allow appropriate treatment to improve their quality of life.

A number of 44 inpatients with Parkinson’s disease were investigated with the Starkstein’s Apathy Scale (AS), the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17), the Hoehn and Yahr staging (HY), the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and the Mini -Mental State Examination (MMSE).

Apathy coexisted with depression in 34.1% of PD patients, compared with depression without apathy in 4.6%, and apathy without depression in 22.7%. Apathy was associated with higher UPDRS score, lower MMSE score and earlier HY stages. Depression was correlated with more advanced HY stages and younger age of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Apathy and depression are common in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Therefore these two conditions should be screened and considered in the management of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Women face unique and greater health risks from smoking than men and have a different nicotine dependence pattern.

To design a personalized approach for women addressing Romanian tobacco dependence treatment centers to quit smoking.

A group of 68 smoking women received a 3 months tobacco dependence treatment intervention, consisting of 3 DVD educational sessions, 20 minutes each and a face to face cognitive – behavioral counseling intervention, emphasizing particularities of tobacco dependence in women (pregnancy risks, passive smoking, female hormones configuration, nicotinic receptors interactions, efficacy of nicotine dependence therapy according to gender, etc.).

Females under study were heavy smokers (17.16 ± 8.03 SD packs cigarettes/years) with high nicotine dependence scores (6.52 ± 6.03 SD).

Abstinence rate evaluated in end of treatment (3EOT) phase by an office visit (self-declared abstinence and exhaled carbon monoxide validation) was 38% and increased at 44.1% at 6 months follow-up when evaluated by a telephone contact visit (6TCV).

Personalized tobacco dependence treatment approach, focusing on specific women tobacco use concerns increased abstinence rates, comparatively to previous data in women not benefiting educational DVD and face to face sessions [1].

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Depression, anxiety and panic disorders are often encountered in chronic respiratory disorders, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), especially in severe disease stages with impaired quality of life.

To assess anxiety, depression and panic disorders among patients diagnosed with COPD and to correlate them with respiratory disease severity and quality of life.

We investigated the profile of anxiety, depression and panic attacks in relation to patients’ medical history, demographic data, smoking status, COPD staging and disease severity (estimated by CAT quality of life questionnaire, GOLD guideline staging).

A total of 60 COPD patients were enrolled. Smoking profile showed more intensive smoking in men (35.81 mean packs-years versus 24.38 in women). The COPD high-risk group type D was predominant, with severe dyspnea, decreased lung function, frequent exacerbations and low quality of life (mean CAT score: 21.75). Mean distribution of anxiety and depression symptoms among COPD subjects was corresponding to a 10.65 ± 3.54 SD anxiety score, respectively to 9.93 ± 3.80 SD depression score. Panic attacks were found in 43.3% of the patients.

Anxiety, depression and panic attacks were frequent findings among severe, unstable COPD patients. More carefully screening for anxiety, depression and panic attacks in this category of patients, thus adding a specific psychotherapeutic component to the COPD general treatment plan, would improve patients’ health benefits.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.