Psychiatric aspects of HIV-1 infection and AIDS

The literature on the psychiatric aspects of HIV-1 infection is reviewed. The whole range of psychiatric disorders described in HIV-1 infected subjects, from HIV-1 dementia to adjustment disorders, is covered, along with the AIDS-related psychopathology which may develop in subjects without HIV-1 infectio

S44-02 Implementing family supportive interventions for schizophrenia in public mental health centres

Studies aimed at implementing supportive treatments for families in clinical practice report that after a training course 7 to 27 percent of professionals apply these treatments in clinical work and a mean of 1.4 to 1.7 families per trainee receive these interventions.We carried out a study in 23 Italian mental health centres in order to explore the feasibility of providing psychoeducational interventions for persons with schizophrenia and their families in routine conditions.Two professionals from each center attended three monthly training sessions for psychoeducational interventions. After the training, each professional provided informative sessions on schizophrenia to five families of service users with schizophrenia, which consisted of three meetings with each family on clinical aspects of schizophrenia, drug treatments, and detection of early signs of relapse. Each professional then provided the intervention to families for six months.Thirty-eight of the 46 participants completed the training course, and 34 provided the intervention to 71 families. Twenty-nine of the 34 provided the entire intervention to the families and five of the 34 held only informative sessions on schizophrenia. Ninety-one percent of the participants who completed the study reported difficulties in integrating the intervention with their work responsibilities, and 96 percent acknowledged the positive effect that the intervention had on the center's relationship with patients with schizophrenia and their families.These results support the idea that it is possible to introduce psychoeducational interventions in mental health centres after a relatively brief period of training and supervision

Differential Responses of Circulating Ghrelin to High-Fat or High-Carbohydrate Meal in Healthy Women

Abstract The effects of specific nutritional factors on ghrelin secretion have not been investigated in humans. Therefore, we assessed ghrelin responses to a high-carbohydrate meal (1217 kcal with 77% carbohydrates, 10% protein, and 13% lipids) and to an isocaloric high-fat meal (15% carbohydrates, 10% proteins, and 75% lipids) in 14 nonobese healthy women. Eleven subjects also rated their hunger feelings on visual analog scales. Circulating ghrelin abruptly fell after both meals, but, after the carbohydrate meal, its maximum percent decrease was significantly greater than after the fat meal (P = 0.02). Plasma insulin and glucose levels rose after the meals, but their increases were significantly higher after the carbohydrate meal than after the fat meal. No significant change was observed in circulating leptin after both meals. Moreover, compared with the fat meal, the carbohydrate meal had a significantly greater suppressant effect on hunger feelings. Plasma ghrelin changes were significantly associated with hunger changes (P < 0.007). These findings show that circulating ghrelin is differently suppressed by diet manipulations. The mechanisms responsible for such a phenomenon and its possible implication in the physiology of human satiety remain to be elucidated

Modeling Relationships Between Negative Symptoms, Neurocognition and Social Cognition

Introduction Negative symptoms have been associated with functional outcome of patients with schizophrenia by a large body of literature. However, in previous studies negative symptoms were regarded as a unitary construct, while recent literature data suggest that they include at least two factors, 'Avolition" and 'Poor Emotional Expression" (EE), that might show different relationships to functional outcome; moreover, the inter-relationships of negative symptoms, neurocognition, social cognition and real-life functioning are poorly understood. Objectives A large multicenter study was carried out by the Italian Network for Research on Psychoses to model relationship between the negative symptom domains and real-life functioning, taking into account the role of other psychopathological dimensions including depression, neurocognition, functional capacity and social cognition. Methods A structural equation model was used to investigate direct and indirect effects of the 2 negative symptoms domains, other psychopathological dimensions, including depression, and neurocognition on real-life functioning. Social cognition and functional capacity were modeled as mediators. Results In 921 patients with schizophrenia we found that the considered variables explained about 50% of real-life functioning variance. Avolition and functional capacity were the strongest independent predictors, followed by positive and disorganization dimensions, neurocognition and social cognition. EE had only a modest indirect effect on functioning. Neurocognition strongly predicted functional capacity and social cognition, which mediated its effects on functioning. Conclusion Our results support the heterogeneity of the two negative symptom domains. Only avolition is a strong predictor of functioning in real-life of patients with schizophrenia independent of social cognition, neurocognition and functional capacity. Acknowledgements The study was carried out within the project 'Multicenter study on factors influencing real-life social functioning of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia" of the Italian Network for Research on Psychoses

Cerebral connectivity and psychotic personality traits: A diffusion tensor imaging study

This study aims to investigate the relationship between regional connectivity in the brain white matter and the presence of psychotic personality traits, in healthy subjects with psychotic traits. Thirteen healthy controls were administered the MMPI-2, to assess psychotic traits and, according to MMPI results, a dichotomization into a group of "high-psychotic” and "low-psychotic” was performed. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used as a non-invasive measure, in order to obtain information about the fractional anisotropy (FA), an intravoxel index of local connectivity and, by means of a voxelwise approach, the between-group differences of the FA values were calculated. The "high-psychotic” group showed higher FA in the left arcuate fasciculus. Subjects with low scores for psychotic traits had significantly higher FA in the corpus callosum, right arcuate fasciculus, and fronto-parietal fibers. In line with previous brain imaging studies of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, our results suggest that psychotic personality traits are related to altered connectivity and brain asymmetr

Problematic, absent and stigmatizing diagnoses in current mental disorders classifications: Results from the WHO-WPA and WHO-IUPsyS Global Surveys

This study examined English- and Spanish-speaking psychologists' and psychiatrists' opinions regarding problematic, absent and stigmatizing diagnoses in current mental disorders classifications (ICD-10 and DSM-IV), and their perceived need for a national classification of mental disorders. Answers to open-ended questions included in WHO-WPA and WHO-IUPsyS surveys were examined using an inductive content-analysis method. A total of 3,222 participants from 35 countries were included. The most problematic diagnostic group was personality disorders, especially among psychiatrists, because of poor validity and lack of specificity. Complex posttraumatic stress disorder was the most frequent diagnosis suggested for inclusion, mainly by psychologists, to better account for the distinct processes and consequences of complex trauma. Schizophrenia was the diagnosis most frequently identified as stigmatizing, particularly by psychiatrists, due to lack of public understanding or knowledge about the diagnosis. Of the 14.4% of participants who perceived a need for a national classification system, two-thirds were from Africa or Latin America. The rationales provided were that mental disorders classifications should consider cultural and socio-historical diversity in the expression of psychopathology, differences in the perception of what is and is not pathological in different nations, and the existence of culture-bound syndromes. Implications for ICD-11 development and dissemination are discussed. © 2014 Asociación Española de Psicología Conductual

Mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders in the ICD-11 : An international perspective on key changes and controversies

The Author(s). 2020Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link tothe Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.An update of the chapter on Mental, Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) is of great interest around the world. The recent approval of the 11th Revision of the ICD (ICD-11) by the World Health Organization (WHO) raises broad questions about the status of nosology of mental disorders as a whole as well as more focused questions regarding changes to the diagnostic guidelines for specific conditions and the implications of these changes for practice and research. This Forum brings together a broad range of experts to reflect on key changes and controversies in the ICD-11 classification of mental disorders. Taken together, there is consensus that the WHO's focus on global applicability and clinical utility in developing the diagnostic guidelines for this chapter will maximize the likelihood that it will be adopted by mental health professionals and administrators. This focus is also expected to enhance the application of the guidelines in non-specialist settings and their usefulness for scaling up evidence-based interventions. The new mental disorders classification in ICD-11 and its accompanying diagnostic guidelines therefore represent an important, albeit iterative, advance for the field.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Selected E-ISNR 2004 Conference Presentation Abstracts

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