The intercontinental schizophrenia outpatient health outcomes (IC-SOHO) study: baseline clinical and functional characteristics and antipsychotic use patterns in the North Africa and Middle Eastern (AMEA) region: original article

Objective: To describe the baseline findings of the Intercontinental Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (IC-SOHO) study in the North Africa and Middle Eastern sub-region (AMEA-SOHO) Method: The IC-SOHO study is an ongoing prospective, three-year, non-interventional observational study of schizophrenia treatment, clinical characteristics and mental health services utilization in two North African and two Middle Eastern countries. The study population consists of non-hospitalised patients who had initiated treatment with or changed to a new antipsychotic. Results: The baseline findings of the IC-SOHO study (AMEA Subset) appear to reflect clinical practice in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Algeria (N=1, 398). Overall, the patients were moderately to markedly ill and either overweight (46%) or obese (8%) when they entered the study. Functionally, the majority of patients were not involved in social activities, could not care for themselves and were unemployed. Substance and alcohol dependency/abuse was not a problem in this study population. At baseline the majority of patients were treated with typical antipsychotics (oral and depot); and anticholinergics were the most commonly prescribed concomitant medication. Sexual side effects were most frequently reported among the surveyed adverse events. Overall compliance/adherence to medication was good. Conclusion: The baseline IC-SOHO data highlighted various clinical and functional characteristics and antipsychotic use patterns in a group of outpatients with schizophrenia in a naturalistic setting. Once completed, the IC-SOHO study will add further to this knowledge base. SA Psychiatry Rev. Vol.7(3) 2004: 27-3

Comparison of cognitive functions in bipolar disorder patients with and without comorbid borderline personality disorder

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD) with and without comorbid borderline personality disorder (BPD), in euthymic period, in terms of cognitive functions. The main hypotesis of this study was that cognitive functions would be more impaired in patients with BD with comorbid BPD (BD + BPD). Methods: The structured clinical interviews for diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-IV axis I disorders (SCID-I and SCID-II) were administered to 105 patients and the patients were separated into two groups as 79 BD patients and 26 BD plus BPD patients. Young Mania Rating Scale, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, California verbal learning test, Wisconsin card sorting test, trail-making test (TMT), and stroop test were administered to the both groups. Results: BD with comorbid BPD group showed statistically significantly lower performance in the average scores of TMT-A seconds and errors, and TMT-B seconds scores than the BD group (respectively t = −3.449, p = .001; t = −3.431, p = .001; t = −2.331, p = .022). Conclusions: The processing speed, set shifting, and selective attention in BD with comorbid BPD group is more disturbed than the BD group. We suggest that when evaluating the cognitive functions, evaluation of comorbid psychiatric diagnosis, especially BPD, is crucial in BD

Investigation of Association Between Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism Frequency in Turkish Patients with Schizophrenia

Aim: The insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene is of increasing interest in etiology and treatment of various neuropsychiatric disorders. The present study aimed at detecting the incidence of ACE gene I/D polymorphism in patients with schizophrenia living in the Eskisehir region (Turkey) and also at determining whether this illness could be associated to ACE gene I/D polymorphism and serum ACE concentrations. Methods: In our study, genomic DNA was studied in a total of 237 individuals, 132 of them having been diagnosed as patients with schizophrenia and 105 of them being used as control subjects. In addition, sera from 31 patients with schizophrenia and 26 healthy subjects were used to compare serum ACE concentrations. By using polymerase chain reaction, we determined the frequency of ACE gene I/D polymorphism and measured the serum ACE concentrations by ELISA. Results and Conclusion: Distribution of ACE gene I/D polymorphism and allele frequencies between the control group genotype proportions (II 19%, ID 44%, DD 37%) and the patient group (II 19%, ID 45%, DD 36%) were not significantly different. Serum ACE concentrations were 293.15 +/- 23.29 ng/mL in the control group and 362.61 +/- 19.96 ng/mL in the patients. It was observed that serum ACE concentrations significantly increased in patients with schizophrenia compared with those of the control group (p < 0.05). However, no significant difference could be observed according to genotypes in serum ACE concentration

Development, reliability and validity of bipolar disorder functioning questionnaire

2nd Biennial Conference of the International-Society-for-Bipolar-Disorders -- AUG 02-04, 2006 -- Edinburgh, SCOTLANDWOS: 00023918630015

Demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics for differential diagnosis of peripheral lymphadenopathy (LAP) and the etiologic distribution of LAP in adults; a multicenter, nested case-control study including 1401 patients from Turkey

Peripheral lymphadenopathy (LAP) is an important and common abnormal finding of the physical exam in general medical practice. We aimed to reveal the LAP etiology and demographic, clinical and laboratory variables that may be useful in the differential evaluation of LAP. This multicenter, nested case-control study including 1401 patients between 2014 and 2019 was conducted in 19 tertiary teaching and research hospitals from different regions in Turkey. The ratio of infectious, malign and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases was 31.3%, 5% and 0.3%, respectively. In 870 (62%) of patients had nonspecific etiology. Extrapulmonary tuberculosis (n: 235, 16.8%) was the most frequent cause of LAP. The ratio of infective etiology of LAP was significantly lower in patients older than 65 years-old compared to younger patients with the rate of 66.67% and 83.84%, respectively (p 0.016, OR 0.386, 95% Cl 0.186-0.803). The probability of malign etiology was higher both in patients who are older than 45 years-old (p < 0.001, OR 3.23, 95% Cl 1.99-5.26) and older than 65 years-old (p 0.002, OR 3.36, 95% Cl 1.69-6.68). Age, localization and duration of LAP, leukocytosis, anemia, thrombocytopenia, CRP and sedimentation rate were important parameters to differentiate infections. Size of lymph node and splenomegaly in addition to the parameters above were useful parameters for differentiating malign from benign etiology. Despite the improvements in diagnostic tools, reaching a definite differential diagnosis of lymphadenopathy is still challenging. Our results may help clinicians to decide in which cases they need an aggressive workup and set strategies on optimizing the diagnostic approach of adulthood lymphadenopathy

Effect of Hepatosteatosis on the Virological Response in Entecavir and Tenofovir Therapies

Objective: Both chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and hepatosteatosis may lead to necroinflammation in liver. Therefore, the presence of hepatosteatosis might negatively affect the efficacy of antiviral therapy. We aimed to determine the effect of hepatosteatosis on virological response in patients with CHB receiving entecavir (ETV) and tenofovir (TDF) treatment

Quality of life and related factors among chronic hepatitis B-infected patients: a multi-center study, Turkey

Background: The aim of this study was to assess health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients in Turkey and to study related factors

Quality of life and related factors among chronic hepatitis B-infected patients: a multi-center study, Turkey

balkan, ilker inanc/0000-0002-8977-5931; Altindis, Mustafa/0000-0003-0411-9669; Sahin, Ahmet Ziyaettin/0000-0003-1060-6746; atilla, aynur/0000-0001-8027-1991WOS: 000386954300001PubMed: 27809934Background: The aim of this study was to assess health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients in Turkey and to study related factors. Methods: This multicenter study was carried out between January 01 and April 15, 2015 in Turkey in 57 centers. Adults were enrolled and studied in three groups. Group 1: Inactive HBsAg carriers, Group 2: CHB patients receiving antiviral therapy, Group 3: CHB patients who were neither receiving antiviral therapy nor were inactive HBsAg carriers. Study data was collected by face-to-face interviews using a standardized questionnaire, Short Form-36 (SF-36) and Hepatitis B Quality of Life (HBQOL). Values equivalent to p < 0.05 in analyses were accepted as statistically significant. Results: Four thousand two hundred fifty-seven patients with CHB were included in the study. Two thousand five hundred fifty-nine (60.1 %) of the patients were males. Groups 1, 2 and 3, consisted of 1529 (35.9 %), 1721 (40.4 %) and 1007 (23.7 %) patients, respectively. The highest value of HRQOL was found in inactive HBsAg carriers. We found that total HBQOL score increased when antiviral treatment was used. However, HRQOL of CHB patients varied according to their socio-demographic properties. Regarding total HBQOL score, a higher significant level of HRQOL was determined in inactive HBV patients when matched controls with the associated factors were provided. Conclusions: The HRQOL score of CHB patients was higher than expected and it can be worsen when the disease becomes active. Use of an antiviral therapy can contribute to increasing HRQOL of patients