Comprehensive psychiatry
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Comprehensive psychiatry · Jul 2008
Self-reported combat stress indicators among troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: an epidemiological study.
Evident mental health needs among combat veterans after their return from combat have been described, whereas available data describing the mental health status of military personnel during deployment are few. Data were collected from personnel systematically selected from current combat regions participating in a rest and recuperation program in Doha, Qatar. Overall, 40620 troops completed a clinic screening form between October 2003 and January 2005. ⋯ Distinct temporal trends found in reported combat stress and monthly mortality rates were noted. These data support previous reports of higher mental health problems among troops in Iraq as compared with troops in Afghanistan and lower health care-seeking behavior overall. In an effort to remove barriers to care and minimize combat stress effects, it is critical to recognize mental health needs and initiate services during combat deployments.
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Comprehensive psychiatry · May 2008
Comparative StudyClinical profile of "schizo-obsessive" disorder: a comparative study.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common comorbid condition in schizophrenia. The clinical implications of this comorbidity are uncertain. There is some evidence to suggest that schizophrenia with OCD (schizo-obsessive) has a poor prognosis, but the effect of OCD on schizophrenia symptom profile is unclear. ⋯ They had lower anergia, higher depression scores, more comorbid personality disorders, and somewhat lesser disability. Significant correlations were observed between the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale scores (including the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale insight score) and schizophrenia symptom dimension scores. Our findings are concordant with the hypothesis that "schizo-obsessive" schizophrenia may be a distinct subtype with unique clinical characteristics, supporting the need for further research in this area.
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Comprehensive psychiatry · Mar 2008
Basic emotions and psychological distress: association between recognition of facial expressions and Symptom Checklist-90 subscales.
Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated universal similarity in the recognition and expression of basic emotions in facial expressions. The so-called mood congruency effect, observed primarily in clinical populations, implies that subjects with depressed mood tend to judge positive emotions as neutral and neutral faces as negative. The objective was to investigate whether a mood congruency effect can be detected in case of mild impairments among healthy subjects. First, it was hypothesized that subjects with mild psychiatric symptom distress have poorer performance in affective facial recognition in general. Second, it was also hypothesized that these subjects have poorer functioning in neutral face recognition and that they are prone to attribute negative emotions, for example, sadness and fear to neutral faces. Third, it was also assumed that people with mild psychiatric symptom distress have poor performance in recognizing positive emotions. ⋯ These findings support the notion that difficulties in emotion processing in general and in neutral face recognition, including a negative bias in particular, are strongly related to psychological distress and the severity of psychiatric symptoms in a healthy population.
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Comprehensive psychiatry · Mar 2008
Conduct disorder in referred children and adolescents: clinical and therapeutic issues.
Studies on referred children and adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) have relevant implications for prevention and treatment. We addressed this issue in a large sample of youths with CD, considering age at onset, sex, and response to treatments as variables. ⋯ Age at onset and sex may be critical variables for prognosis of CD. Psychosocial intervention can significantly improve the treatment response.
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Comprehensive psychiatry · Sep 2007
Character and temperament in major depressive disorder and a highly anxious-retarded subtype derived from melancholia.
An anxious-retarded subtype of major depressive disorder, defined by high scores for both anxiety and retardation, has been derived from melancholia and appeared to have higher external validity in terms of poor outcome and vasopressinergic stress hormone regulation. A specific personality could enhance the validity of this subtype, and the association with melancholia suggested the absence of a personality disorder. As 2 character dimensions of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), self-directedness (SD) and cooperativeness, parsimoniously predict the presence of a personality disorder, the primary aim was to test whether patients with the highly anxious-retarded subtype of depression have both normal SD and normal cooperativeness. A secondary aim was to optimally account for the general personality characteristics of patients with a major depressive disorder. ⋯ The temperament of high HA may be the predisposing TCI trait for major depressive disorder in general. Low SD may be a specific presumably premorbid character trait for the highly anxious-retarded subtype derived from melancholia.