Psychological medicine
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Recently released prisoners are at markedly higher risk of suicide than the general population. The aim of this study was to identify key risk factors for suicide by offenders released from prisons in England and Wales. ⋯ There is a need to improve the continuity of care for people who are released from prison and for community health, offender and social care agencies to coordinate care for these vulnerable individuals.
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Psychological medicine · May 2010
Symptom dimensions of post-myocardial infarction depression, disease severity and cardiac prognosis.
Individual symptoms of post-myocardial infarction (MI) depression may be differentially associated with cardiac prognosis, in which somatic/affective symptoms appear to be associated with a worse cardiovascular prognosis than cognitive/affective symptoms. These findings hold important implications for treatment but need to be replicated before conclusions regarding treatment can be drawn. We therefore examined the relationship between depressive symptom dimensions following MI and both disease severity and prospective cardiac prognosis. ⋯ We confirmed that somatic/affective, rather than cognitive/affective, symptoms of depression are associated with MI severity and cardiovascular prognosis. Interventions to improve cardiovascular prognosis by treating depression should be targeted at somatic aspects of depression.
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Psychological medicine · May 2010
The genetic and environmental relationship between major depression and the five-factor model of personality.
Certain personality traits have long been suspected to reflect an enduring vulnerability to major depression (MD) in part because of shared genetic risk factors. Although many have agreed that normative personality is well captured by the 'Big-Five' personality traits of Openness (O), Conscientiousness (C), Extraversion (E), Agreeableness (A) and Neuroticism (N), to date genetically informative studies have only examined the relationship between MD and N and E. ⋯ A large proportion of the genetic risk for MD that is expressed via personality is captured by N, with a modest amount due to C, and small amounts from O, E and A.