CAUSES OF MORTALITY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: AN UPDATED REVIEW OF EUROPEAN STUDIES

Background: The excess mortality in schizophrenia is still a phenomenon insufficiently studied on the cross-national level. It is important to analyse current studies on morality in schizophrenia since significant changes have recently taken place in psychiatric health care systems and guidelines of pharmacological treatment have been developed in European countries. Subjects and methods: This article reviews studies addressing mortality in schizophrenia in Europe that were published in English in the Pubmed database in 2009-2014. It aimed at determining countries where studies were conducted, methodologies and tools used, and current main mortality rates, as well as direction of causality in this group of patients. Results: The recently published studies were conducted only in few European countries. The majority of data was obtained from general medical records and death records. The studies indicate that schizophrenia patients are characterized by higher mortality rate than the general population, with natural causes (cardiovascular diseases and cancers) and suicides predominating. The increasing mortality gap with significantly shorter life expectancy of patients with schizophrenia in comparison with the general population is considerable. Conclusions: Death records are a crucial tool in studies on mortality in schizophrenia patients; however they are insufficiently employed. Recent European reports do not show positive tendencies, indicating that standardized mortality rates in schizophrenia remain on the same level or even increase, particularly for deaths resulting from natural causes. Due to various methodologies used in studies, their direct comparison is difficult. This limitation warrants further discussion on methods used in future studies on schizophrenia mortality in Europe

Media and communication studies as a new field of the humanities?

W ramach I Ogólnopolskiego Kongresu Politologii, obradującego pod hasłem Demokratyczna Polska w globalizującym się świecie (Warszawa, 22-24 września 2009 r.), odbyło się szereg paneli dyskusyjnych i warsztatów metodologicznych. Jeden z paneli - w związku ze zbliżającą się 10. rocznicą „Studiów Medioznawczych” - poświęcono tematowi „Nauka o mediach i komunikacji społecznej jako nowa dyscyplina nauk humanistycznych?”. Bieżący numer pisma zawiera teksty referatów zaprezentowanych w trakcie panelu, a wygłoszonych przez czołowych medioznawców polskich. Słowo wstępne napisał prof. Tomasz Goban-Klas, a charakterystykę i ocenę formuły wydawniczej „Studiów Medioznawczych” w latach 2000–2009 przedstawił dr hab. Wiesław Sonczyk.During the 1st National Political Science Congress, entitled Democratic Poland within a globalizing world (Warsaw, September 22–24, 2009), took place a number of discussion panels and methodological workshops. One of the panels, in connection with the upcoming 10th anniversary of “Studia Medioznawcze” [“Media Studies”] quarterly, was devoted to the subject “Media and communication studies as a new field of the humanities?”. The current issue of the periodical includes papers presented during the panel by leading Polish media studies experts. The introduction was written by professor Tomasz Goban-Klas while Wiesław Sonczyk, Ph. D., put forward a characterization and assessment of the quarterly between 2000-2009

Archaeoacoustic analysis of Cybele’s temple, Imperial Roman Palace of Felix Romuliana, Serbia. An interpretation using a method complementary to archaeology.

Archaeoacoustic and physical phenomena research at ancient sites has developed beyond the initial stage. Our research group uses a practical standard (SBSA) complementing the field of archaeology. Studying archaeoacoustics and natural phenomena over the last four years, has enables us to offer an explanation as to some of the enigmas of ancient archaeological sites that were not possible to explain with other methods. Following our experience, we applied the same method to look at an interesting question about the orientation of Cybele’s Temple situated within the Imperial Roman Palace Felix Romuliana, South-East Serbia. This temple and its fixtures are the only place within the palace that is not oriented along the east-west axis of the complex as was the Roman tradition (Decumanus). Historians also made reference to mysterious rituals, so we used archaeoacoustical methods to better understand why this ought be. We found that the temple’s orientation followed the direction of some infrasound and low frequency vibrations most likely originating from an underground flow of water. These frequencies would have increased the effect of rituals by enhancing the psyche of the participants due to the influence of these low vibrations on human brain waves. This suggests the builders of this temple had some sort of knowledge of this effect

Quality of care and its determinants in longer term mental health facilities across Europe; a cross-sectional analysis.

BACKGROUND: The Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative Care (QuIRC) is an international, standardised quality tool for the evaluation of mental health facilities that provide longer term care. Completed by the service manager, it comprises 145 items that assess seven domains of care: living environment; treatments and interventions; therapeutic environment; self-management and autonomy; social interface; human rights; and recovery based practice. We used the QuIRC to investigate associations between characteristics of longer term mental health facilities across Europe and the quality of care they delivered to service patients. METHODS: QuIRC assessments were completed for 213 longer term mental health units in ten countries that were at various stages of deinstitutionalisation of their mental health services. Associations between QuIRC domain scores and unit descriptive variables were explored using simple and multiple linear regression that took into account clustering at the unit and country level. RESULTS: We found wide variation in QuIRC domain scores between individual units, but across countries, fewer than a quarter scored below 50 % on any domains. The quality of care was higher in units that were smaller, of mixed sex, that had a defined expected maximum length of stay and in which not all patients were severely disabled. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first time longer term mental health units across a number of European countries have been compared using a standardised measure. Further use of the QuIRC will allow greater understanding of the quality of care in these units across Europe and provide an opportunity to monitor pan-European quality standards of care for this vulnerable patient group

A comparison of DSM-5 and DSM-IV agoraphobia in the World Mental Health Surveys

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5 (DSM-5) definition of agoraphobia (AG) as an independent diagnostic entity makes it timely to re-examine the epidemiology of AG. Study objective was to present representative data on the characteristics of individuals who meet DSM-IV criteria for AG (AG without a history of panic disorder [PD] and PD with AG) but not DSM-5 criteria, DSM-5 but not DSM-IV criteria, or both sets of criteria.Population-based surveys from the World Mental Health Survey Initiative including adult respondents (n = 136,357) from 27 countries across the world. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to assess AG and other disorders.Lifetime and 12-month prevalence estimates of DSM-5 AG (1.5% and 1.0%) were comparable to DSM-IV (1.4% and 0.9%). Of respondents meeting criteria in either system, 57.1% met criteria in both, while 24.2% met criteria for DSM-5 only and 18.8% for DSM-IV only. Severe role impairment due to AG was reported by a lower proportion of respondents who met criteria only for DSM-IV AG (30.4%) than those with both DSM-5 and DSM-IV AG (44.0%; χ  = 4.7; P = 0.031). The proportion of cases with any comorbidity was lower among respondents who met criteria only for DSM-IV AG (78.7%) than those who met both sets (92.9%; χ = 14.5; P

Estimating treatment coverage for people with substance use disorders:an analysis of data from the World Mental Health Surveys

Substance use is a major cause of disability globally. This has been recognized in the recent United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in which treatment coverage for substance use disorders is identified as one of the indicators. There have been no estimates of this treatment coverage cross-nationally, making it difficult to know what is the baseline for that SDG target. Here we report data from the World Health Organization (WHO)'s World Mental Health Surveys (WMHS), based on representative community household surveys in 26 countries. We assessed the 12-month prevalence of substance use disorders (alcohol or drug abuse/dependence); the proportion of people with these disorders who were aware that they needed treatment and who wished to receive care; the proportion of those seeking care who received it; and the proportion of such treatment that met minimal standards for treatment quality (“minimally adequate treatment”). Among the 70,880 participants, 2.6% met 12-month criteria for substance use disorders; the prevalence was higher in upper-middle income (3.3%) than in high-income (2.6%) and low/lower-middle income (2.0%) countries. Overall, 39.1% of those with 12-month substance use disorders recognized a treatment need; this recognition was more common in high-income (43.1%) than in upper-middle (35.6%) and low/lower-middle income (31.5%) countries. Among those who recognized treatment need, 61.3% made at least one visit to a service provider, and 29.5% of the latter received minimally adequate treatment exposure (35.3% in high, 20.3% in upper-middle, and 8.6% in low/lower-middle income countries). Overall, only 7.1% of those with past-year substance use disorders received minimally adequate treatment: 10.3% in high income, 4.3% in upper-middle income and 1.0% in low/lower-middle income countries. These data suggest that only a small minority of people with substance use disorders receive even minimally adequate treatment. At least three barriers are involved: awareness/perceived treatment need, accessing treatment once a need is recognized, and compliance (on the part of both provider and client) to obtain adequate treatment. Various factors are likely to be involved in each of these three barriers, all of which need to be addressed to improve treatment coverage of substance use disorders. These data provide a baseline for the global monitoring of progress of treatment coverage for these disorders as an indicator within the SDGs

A comparison of psychiatric day hospitals in five European countries - Implications of their diversity for day hospital research

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The descriptive epidemiology of DSM-IV Adult ADHD in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys

We previously reported on the cross-national epidemiology of ADHD from the first 10 countries in the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys. The current report expands those previous findings to the 20 nationally or regionally representative WMH surveys that have now collected data on adult ADHD. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) was administered to 26,744 respondents in these surveys in high-, upper-middle-, and low-/lower-middle-income countries (68.5% mean response rate). Current DSM-IV/CIDI adult ADHD prevalence averaged 2.8% across surveys and was higher in high (3.6%)- and upper-middle (3.0%)- than low-/lower-middle (1.4%)-income countries. Conditional prevalence of current ADHD averaged 57.0% among childhood cases and 41.1% among childhood subthreshold cases. Adult ADHD was significantly related to being male, previously married, and low education. Adult ADHD was highly comorbid with DSM-IV/CIDI anxiety, mood, behavior, and substance disorders and significantly associated with role impairments (days out of role, impaired cognition, and social interactions) when controlling for comorbidities. Treatment seeking was low in all countries and targeted largely to comorbid conditions rather than to ADHD. These results show that adult ADHD is prevalent, seriously impairing, and highly comorbid but vastly under-recognized and undertreated across countries and cultures