Psychopathological heterogeneity in manic syndromes may in part reflect underlying latent classes with characteristic outcome patterns. Differential treatment course and outcome after 12 weeks of treatment were examined for three distinct classes of patients with acute mania in bipolar disorder.

Three thousand four hundred and twenty-five patients with acute mania were divided into three distinct mania classes: ‘Typical’, ‘Psychotic’ and ‘Dual’ (i.e. comorbid substance use) mania. Persistence of class differences and social outcomes were examined, using multilevel regression analyses and odds ratios.

The three classes showed substantial stability post-baseline in the pattern of associations with class-characteristic variables. Psychotic and Dual mania predicted poorer outcome in terms of psychosis comorbidity and overall bipolar and mania severity, while Dual mania additionally predicted poorer outcome of alcohol and substance abuse. Worse social outcomes were observed for both Dual and Psychotic mania.

The identified distinct classes are stable and associated with differential treatment outcome. Overall, Dual and Psychotic mania show less favourable outcomes compared to Typical mania. These findings additionally give rise to concern on the generalisability of randomized clinical trials RCTs.

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle response provides an operational index of sensorimotor gating that is reliably demonstrable in both human and animal subjects. Patients with schizophrenia, first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, patients with schizotypal personality disorder and healthy individuals scoring high on psychometric measures of psychosis-proneness display reduced PPI. This study examined associations between individual differences in “psychosis-proneness” and brain activity during a tactile prepulse inhibition paradigm previously found to reveal activation in controls and deficient activation in schizophrenia patients in the striatum, thalamus, insula, hippocampal, temporal, inferior frontal, and inferior parietal regions.

Fourteen right-handed healthy men underwent psychophysiological testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a 15-min tactile PPI paradigm involving the use of tactile stimuli as both the pulse (a 40-ms presentation of 30 psi air-puff) and the prepulse (a 20-ms presentation of 6 psi air-puff presented 30-ms or 120-ms before the pulse). Individual differences in “psychosis-proneness” were assessed with Psychoticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R).

High psychosis-proneness was associated with lower PPI and reduced activity in the inferior frontal gyrus, insula extending to putamen and thalamus, parahippocampal gyrus, and inferior parietal and middle temporal regions. No regional activity correlated positively with psychosis-proneness.

The present observations extend the findings observed previously in people with schizophrenia to people with high psychosis-proneness, providing support to continuum theories of psychosis with implications for understanding trait-related neural deficits in schizophrenia.

We previously tested topiramate, an anticonvulsant, in the treatment of aggression in men with borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Nickel M, Nickel C, Kaplan P, Lahmann C, Mühlbacher M, Tritt K, et al. Treatment of aggression with topiramate in male borderline patients: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Biol Psychiatry 2005;57:495–9), and found significant changes on most scales of the state–trait anger expression inventory (STAXI) and significant weight loss eight weeks later. The aim of this trial was to assess topiramate's efficacy in the long-term therapy for aggression in men with BPD.

This 18-month follow-up observation, in which the previous patients (topiramate group: n = 22; former placebo group: n = 22) were examined bianually, was carried out.

According to the intent-to-treat principle, significant changes on all scales of the STAXI were observed in the subjects treated with topiramate. Additional significant weight loss was observed. All subjects tolerated topiramate relatively well.

Topiramate appears to be an effective, relatively safe agent in the long-term treatment of patients with BPD. Mild, non-transient weight loss can be expected.

The quick and simple Depression Scale (DEPS) has been a popular self-rating depression scale in Finland for nearly 15 years. The purpose was to assess the validity of the DEPS in various subgroups of patients.

Primary care patients, aged 18–64, completed a postal questionnaire including the DEPS. Of the 1643 patients all screen-positive subjects and every 10th screen-negative subject were invited for interview (the Present State Examination, PSE). Complete DEPS scores were available for 410 patients. They were grouped by gender, age, marital status, perceived physical health, basic education and the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) score. Separately for each subgroup, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were done, sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve (AUC), predictive values and likelihood ratios were calculated, and Cronbach's α was estimated.

The DEPS was valid in general, but best for patients with basic education longer than 9 years.

The key statistical figures for the DEPS were comparable to the figures for other short self-rating scales.

The DEPS is a valid case finder for primary care patients in the age group 18–64 years, and especially suitable for more highly educated patients. Future studies comparing the DEPS with other simple depression rating scales are needed.

The association between childhood family structure and sociodemographic characteristics and personality disorders (PDs) in a general population sample was studied.

This study is a substudy of the prospective Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort Project with 1588 young adult subjects. The case-finding methods according to the DSM-III-R criteria for PDs were: (1) Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) for 321 cases who participated in a 2-phase field study, (2) Finnish Hospital Discharge Register data, and (3) analysis of the patient records in public outpatient care in 1982–1997. Statistical analyses were performed on the association between PDs and family background factors.

Altogether 110 (7.0%) of the subjects had at least one probable or definite PD. After adjusting for confounders (gender, parental social class and parental psychiatric disorder) the results indicated that single-parent family type in childhood was associated with cluster B PDs in adulthood. Being an only child in childhood was associated with cluster A PDs. No special childhood risk factors were found for cluster C PDs.

Results suggest that single-parent family type at birth and being an only child in the 1960s are associated with PD in adulthood. Further studies are needed to explore the psychosocial aspects of family environment which may nowadays promote vulnerability to PDs in adulthood.

Recently there has been a renewed interest in defining the boundaries and subdomains of the negative syndrome in schizophrenia and new scales have been asked for. Apathy is one of the symptoms in focus. The Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES) with its clinical version (AES-C) is one of the most used scales in an interdisciplinary context, but it has never previously been used in a population with first episode psychosis. The main aims of this study were to examine the psychometric properties of the AES-C and its relationship to the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).

A total of 104 patients with first episode psychosis from the ongoing Thematic Organized Psychosis Research (TOP) study were included.

A factor analysis of the AES-C identified three subscales: Apathy, Insight and Social Contacts. Only the Apathy subscale showed satisfactory psychometric properties and showed acceptable convergent and discriminate properties by correlating strongly with the apathy-related items of the PANSS.

This study shows that the AES-C measures more than one dimension. The main factor, the Apathy subscale, can however be used to assess apathy in first episode psychosis patients in the ongoing work of refining the subdomains of the negative syndrome.

To analyse the contribution of socio-demographics, clinical profile and psychotropic treatment on remission in patients with schizophrenia.

Among 933 French outpatients recruited in the European observational Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes study (SOHO), 563 were followed-up for 3 years, had at most one missing visit, and were included in the analysis. Symptomatic remission was defined as a score of 3 (mild severity) or less on the Clinical Global Impression-Schizophrenia (CGI) overall, positive, negative and cognitive symptom scales, maintained for at least 6 months and without hospitalization. A logistic regression model was used to analyse the factors associated with time in remission.

60.6% of patients achieved remission during the 3-year follow-up. Patients never treated before inclusion in the study (OR = 2.3) and those having paid employment (OR = 1.4) were more likely to achieve remission. Higher baseline clinical severity was associated with a significantly lower likelihood of achieving remission: CGI overall (OR = 0.67), CGI positive (OR = 0.85) and CGI negative (OR = 0.74). Compared with olanzapine, other atypicals (OR = 0.71) and conventional antipsychotics (OR = 0.69) were associated with a lower probability of achieving remission.

Remission can be achieved in a high proportion of patients. Factors such as being previously untreated, having paid employment and taking olanzapine are predictors of remission.

To compare Emergency Room (ER) utilisation by subjects diagnosed as suffering from a mental disorder, who were born in Strong Migratory Pressure Countries (SMPC) or in Italy. To evaluate the predictors of admission to psychiatric and to non-psychiatric wards.

Data collected from Information System of Emergency Rooms were analysed. ER contacts in the years 2000–2004 pertaining to subjects who received a psychiatric diagnosis (ICD9-CM codes), and who were born in SMPC or in Italy were examined. “Contacts” included a total of 68,867 assessments made in the ER of all general hospitals in Rome having an acute psychiatric ward. Gender, age and clinical information on SMPC-born and Italian-born patients were compared. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed in order to determine risk factors for admission to a psychiatric or to a non-psychiatric ward.

At the end of follow-up, 11.7% of ER contacts concerned patients born in SMPC. Compared to the Italian-born group, these patients were younger and received more frequently a diagnosis of “Alcohol and substance abuse and dependencies”, while admissions to a psychiatric ward were significantly less common.

Monitoring health service utilisation may provide relevant information for the delivery of culturally sensitive mental health services.

The aims of this study were first, to examine the general relation between stressful life events (SLEs) and clinical relapses in women with multiple sclerosis (MS) and second, to investigate the relations of the specific stressor attributes of duration, type, and severity on MS exacerbations.

Twenty six ambulating women with relapsing-remitting MS were followed-up for a mean of 56.3 weeks. Patients documented SLEs weekly in self report diaries which were then collected at regular pre-scheduled clinic visits every 4 weeks. SLEs were classified as short-term if they had subjectively no lasting effect and long-term if they had a subjectively felt psychological impact that lasted at least 10–14 days after the event. The severity of SLEs was determined using the Recent Life Change Questionnaire.

Experiencing three or more SLEs, during a 4-week period, was associated with a 5-fold increase of MS relapse rate (95% CI 1.7–16.4, p = 0.003). The presence of at least one long-term SLE was associated with three times (95% CI 1.01–9.13, p < 0.05) the rate of MS exacerbation during the following 4 weeks. There was no significant association between the severity (95% CI 0.99–1.01, p > 0.05) or the type (χ2 = 7.29, df = 5, p > 0.05) of stressor and the risk for relapse.

Ambulatory women with relapsing-remitting MS who experience cumulative SLEs may be at a greater risk for relapse. Duration is the only stress attribute that seems to increase the risk for relapsing in contrast to stress type and stress severity that were not found to interact with MS exacerbation.

To review the diagnostic validity and utility of mixed depression, i.e. co-occurrence of depression and manic/hypomanic symptoms.

PubMed search of all English-language papers published between January 1966 and December 2006 using and cross-listing key words: bipolar disorder, mixed states, criteria, utility, validation, gender, temperament, depression-mixed states, mixed depression, depressive mixed state/s, dysphoric hypomania, mixed hypomania, mixed/dysphoric mania, agitated depression, anxiety disorders, neuroimaging, pathophysiology, and genetics. A manual review of paper reference lists was also conducted.

By classic diagnostic validators, the diagnostic validity of categorically-defined mixed depression (i.e. at least 2–3 manic/hypomanic symptoms) is mainly supported by family history (the current strongest diagnostic validator). Its diagnostic utility is supported by treatment response (negative effects of antidepressants). A dimensionally-defined mixed depression is instead supported by a non-bi-modal distribution of its intradepression manic/hypomanic symptoms.

Categorically-defined mixed depression may have some diagnostic validity (family history is the current strongest validator). Its diagnostic utility seems supported by treatment response.

This study aimed to explore the relationship between online game addiction and aggression, self-control, and narcissistic personality traits, which are known as the psychological characteristics linked to “at-risk” populations for online game addiction.

A total of 1471 online game users (males 82.7%, females 17.3%, mean age 21.30 ± 4.96) participated in this study and were asked to complete several self-report measures using an online response method. Questionnaires included demographic information and game use-related characteristics of the samples, the online game addiction scale (modified from Young's Internet addiction scale), the Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire, a self-control scale, and the narcissistic personality disorder scale.

Our results indicated that aggression and narcissistic personality traits are positively correlated with online game addiction, whereas self-control is negatively correlated with online game addiction (p < 0.001). In addition, a multiple regression analysis revealed that the extent of online game addiction could be predicted based on the person's narcissistic personality traits, aggression, self-control, interpersonal relationship, and occupation. However, only 20% of the variance in behavioral consequences was explained with the model.

An interesting profile has emerged from the results of this study, suggesting that certain psychological characteristics such as aggression, self-control, and narcissistic personality traits may predispose some individuals to become addicted to online games. This result will deepen our understanding of the “at-risk” population for online game addiction and provide basic information that can contribute to developing a prevention program for people who are addicted to online games.