Treating Depression Mindfully in a Day Hospital:a Randomised Controlled Pilot Study

Objectives: Recent preliminary evidence suggests that mindfulness-based programmes may be beneficial in the treatment of patients suffering from current depression. Due to the heterogeneity of patients with this diagnosis, a specialisation in treatment concepts for subgroups of patients may be beneficial. Methods: This randomised controlled pilot study investigated the effectiveness of an eight-week mindfulness-based day hospital treatment for patients with current depression and work-related conflicts (MDT-DH) under naturalistic conditions. Eighty-one currently depressed patients with work-related conflicts were randomly assigned to either MDT-DH (including personalised psychopharmacological treatment if necessary) or a waitlist condition including a psychopharmacological consultation (PCC). Outcomes were assessed at post-treatment and at 8-month follow-up. The primary outcome was depression severity (Beck Depression Inventory) at post-treatment. Secondary outcomes were work ability (Work Ability Index) and mindfulness (Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills). Results: A multilevel analysis revealed that compared with patients in PCC, patients in the MDT-DH group showed a greater reduction in depression severity, higher work ability and heightened levels of mindfulness after 8 weeks than patients in the PCC group. These improvements were stable during the 8-month follow-up period. Conclusions: Findings of the present pilot study suggest that a treatment concept involving intensive training in mindfulness can be successfully established in a day hospital and leads to clinically meaningful reductions in depression severity and increases in work ability in patients suffering from current depression. The generalisability of the findings may be limited due to small sample size, selective patient group and study design

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Contains research objectives and reports on two research projects

From Upstream to Purification : Production of Lactic Acid from the Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste

The implementation of an efficient and sustainable management of the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW) is a topic of intensive discussion in EU countries. Recently, the OFMSW has been investigated as a potential substrate for the production of lactic acid (LA) through fermentation. Nevertheless, none of the reports available in the literature covers all the stages of the conversion process. The present research article is a comprehensive study which includes the upstream, fermentation and downstream for the conversion of OFMSW into LA. Several batches of OFMSW were analysed for the evaluation of sugars released and LA content before the fermentation. Fermentations were performed to study the effect of hydrolysate quality on the LA production using Bacillus coagulans A166. Purification of LA, based on electrodialysis, was carried out after pilot scale fermentation of OFMSW hydrolysates. Results showed that variations in the concentrations of sugars and LA are observed from batch to batch of OFMSW. More specifically, LA can reach high concentrations even before the substrates are hydrolysed, limiting the potential applications of the final product due to low enantiomeric purities. In general, fermentations of the hydrolysate were efficient, with conversion yields of 0.65 g g−1 without the addition of extra nutrients. Downstream is still a challenging stage of the process. A LA recovery of 55% was obtained, with the most significant losses observed during the micro- and nanofiltrations. Overall, a conversion of 10% from OFMSW substrate (dry basis) to LA was achieved