Individuals with schizophrenia are in greater risk of physical illnesses and their life is shorter comparing with general population. Hazardous lifestyles as tobacco smoking, lack of physical activity, and obesity contributing to this negative trend. Role of antipsychotic therapy, particularly second generation is also possible. This study aimed to establish hazardous lifestyles in clinical sample of patients with schizophrenia treated with first or second generation antipsychotics.

Study included 60 patients with schizophrenia (38.3% women) treated with antipsychotics for period of six months or longer. Experimental group included 30 patients treated with second generation antipsychotics, and control group included 30 patients treated with first generation antipsychotics. Physical activity, tobacco smoking, and waist circumference as an increased body weight indicator were analysed. Overweight was defined as a waist circumference above 102 cm for males and 88 cm for females.

Mean age was 44.5±12.6. in this sample was 75% tobacco smokers, 30% of subjects taking typical, and 43% of subjects taking atypical antipsychotics declared physical inactivity during most of the day. Increased waist circumpherence was established in 51.6% of subjects. There wasn't statistically significant difference between two group of subjects (p=0.538).

Hazardous lifestyles including cigarette smoking, lack of physical activity and increased body weight are common in the individuals with schizophrenia. There wasn't statistically significant difference between subjects taking first or second generation antipsychotics.

To investigate the relationship between the length of stay in a western host country and psychiatric disorders among asylum seekers from Iraq.

Two groups of Iraqi asylum seekers, respectively less than 6 months (n=143) and more than 2 years (n=151) in The Netherlands were interviewed The sampling was at random. The health status was measured and evaluated in relation with pre-and post-migration adverse life events. Riskfactor analyses were done and adjusted Odds Ratio's were assessed. Moreover data were collected about physical health, functional disability and quality of life and their relationship with psychopathology as well as with length of stay were assessed.

The overall prevalence of psychiatric disorders was 42% in the group that just arrived and 66.2% in the group that stayed more than 2 years in the Netherlands. On logistic regression of all relevant riskfactors, a long asylum procedure showed an odds ratio of 2.16 (CI=1.15-4.08) for psychopathology. Except for female sex, this odds ratio was higher than those from life events in Iraq. Furthermore: the ‘long stay’ group had higher scores on physical complaints and disability and lower scores on quality of life. The post migration living problems were all directly related to psychopathology. Health service use was low and inadequate.

A long asylum procedure is a very important risk factor for psychiatric disorders, physical health problems, disability and low quality of life. The risk for common psychiatric problems is higher than the adverse life events in the country of origin.

TBI is a significant health problem which often affects young people with high life expectancy and it is associated with a high rate of psychological morbidity. Symptoms such lack of attention and apathy are responsible for a significant degree of discomfort that interferes negatively on the quality of life. Cognitive remediation and treatment with stimulants seem to be useful in these patients, however, few studies are been conducted about the most appropriate management of TBI patients.

Systematic review the existing evidence on the combined use of psychostimulants and cognitive remediation in the treatment of attention problems in patients with TBI.

Performs search in PUBMED and PsycINFO of randomized controlled trials in TBI patients with a psychostimulants and cognitive remediation groups. Analyses the effect of these interventions in a variety of measures attention.

Randomized controlled trials have examined the combined effect of psychostimulants and cognitive rehabilitation. Preliminary results indicate that the mix of strategies is more effective than cognitive rehabilitation and the use of psychostimulants separately. It is described the effectiveness of the combination as well as psychostimulants used and the effect on other symptoms as apathy and slackness.

The effectiveness of both treatments warranted of protocols standardized in the early management of attention difficulties in patients with TBI.

Opioids are the most powerful drugs commercialised for acute and chronic pain relief. The main emerging problem in our midst is the abuse and addiction to synthetic opioids iatrogenically established in general population.

We report the case of a female patient aged 48 admitted to the Acute Psychiatric Unit after a suicide attempt. She refers she finds herself more irritable and depressed since she began a treatment with oxycodone after she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She has lost a lot of weight, is not able to get to sleep and has become socially isolated.

During the first few days, the patient is uncooperative and shows a marked self-referentiality and verbalises delusional ideation related to her immediate surroundings. Once the treatment with opioids was withdrawn and we had prescribed paliperidone ER, she seemed more cooperative and calmed. She was discharged from the Psychiatric Day Hospital showing a good evolution.

Paranoid personality disorder (F60); mental and behavioural disorders due to use of opioids (F11); recurrent depressive disorder, current episode moderate (F33.1); fibromyalgia (M79.7).

The use of synthetic opioids (tramadol, fentanyl, oxycodone) in easy-to-use formats (patches, pills, dispersible tablets, lollipops) and their dissemination in pain treatment, is leading to an increase of problems related to it, both their side effects (psychotic symptoms) and the generation of misuse and addiction. We should pay greater attention to the prescription of opioids to patients with dysfunctional personality traits.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The chronic worldwide shortage of psychiatrists has impaired the delivery of first class mental health care (WHO 2008). This international project funded by a World Psychiatric Association grant proposes to examine and compare the effects of country-specific undergraduate and postgraduate factors involved in medical student choice of a psychiatric career. Phase 1 focussed on identifying published proven and novel modifiable factors to improve psychiatric recruitment.

We searched EMBASE, PsychInfo and Medline using the keywords ‘career psychiatry’, ‘medical education’, and ‘career choice’. All 206 papers retrieved using the combined search were reviewed and categorized thematically.

Findings are summarised under three themes:

1. · Pre-medical school factors: arts & social sciences qualifications, attitudes towards mental illness, high uncertainty tolerance, liberal political views, gender and life goals.

2. · Medical school factors: availability of psychology/sociology/special-studies modules, electives; length of clinical placement; exposure to motivated patients and effective treatment; quality of teaching and good role models; and conversely negative attitudes from other specialities.

3. · Post-graduate factors: availability of early clinical posts in psychiatry, work-life balance, remuneration.

1. · Studies have been limited by small sample sizes, unicentricity, and datedness, given the major reorganisations of mental health services and postgraduate training in many countries.

2. · During the next stage we will generate the first multicountry comparison, with sufficient power to detect differences in factors influencing a psychiatric career choice at personal, institutional and national level. We will focus on factors that may be modifiable by policy to positively influence career choice towards psychiatry.

Individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder and depression (dual diagnosis) present greater challenge to treatment than individuals with a single disorder. Mobile phone technology has the potential to provide personalised support for this group of patients.

To explore the feasibility of using supportive text messaging as an effective strategy to improve outcomes in patients with dual diagnosis.

The study is a single-blind, randomised, trial of supportive mobile text messages. After randomisation of all fifty four eligible patients, those in the intervention group (n = 26) received twice daily supportive SMS text messages for 3 months. At three months, all the study participants completed a range of assessment tools relating to the outcome measures. Data was analyzed with a combination of statistical methods.

The end-point mean Beck's Depression Inventory score was significantly lower in the intervention group compared with the control group: 9.3 (SD = 7.5) vs. 16.0 (SD = 10.3), p = 0.01, Eta Square = 0.12. There was also a statistically significant difference in mean Global Assessment of Function (GAF) scores between the two groups, with the intervention group having a higher mean GAF score compared to the control group: 89.8 (SD = 12.2) VS. 76.1 (SD = 15.3), P < 0.01. Eta square= 0.2. There was also a trend to finding that the mean Cumulative Abstinence Duration in the text message group was higher than that for the control group {88.3 (SD = 6.2) vs. 79.3 (SD = 24.1), p = 0.8).

Supportive text messages have the potential to improve outcomes for patients with alcohol dependency syndrome and comorbid depression.

to explore future directions on the assessment of the risk of suicidal behavior (SB).

narrative review of current and future methods to improving the assessment of the risk of suicidal behavior (SB).

Predicting future SB is a long-standing goal. Currently, the identification of individuals at risk of SB is based on clinician's subjective reports. Unfortunately, most individuals at risk of SB often do not disclose their suicidal thoughts. In the near future, predicting the risk of SB will be enhanced by: (1) introducing objective, reliable measures – i.e. biomarkers – of suicide risk; (2) selecting the most discriminant variables, and developing more accurate measures – i.e. questionnaires – and models for suicide prediction; (3) incorporating new sources of information – i.e. facebook, online monitoring; (4) applying novel methodological instruments such as data mining, or computer adaptive testing; and, (5) most importantly, combining predictors from different domains (clinical, neurobiological and cognitive).

Given the multi-determined nature of SB, a combination of clinical, neuropsychological, biological, and neuroimaging factors, among other might help overcome current limitations in the prediction of SB. Furthermore, given the complexity of prediction of future SB, currently our efforts should be focused on the prevention of SB.

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

An association between Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) and schizophrenia has been shown by a meta-analysis showing a significant Odds Ratio (OR) of 2.7. Currently, several studies have looked at the association between T. gondii and other psychiatric disorders as well, rendering exploration of diagnostic specificity possible. Furthermore, questions remain on the timing and nature of the infection.

A systematic search was performed to identify relevant studies of all major psychiatric disorders versus healthy controls in relation to T. gondii infection. Methodological quality, heterogeneity and risk of bias were assessed.

A total of 2866 studies were found, from which 51 studies were finally included. Significant ORs were found for Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, OCD and Addiction, but not for Major Depression. Further exploration of the association between T. gondii and schizophrenia, yielded a significant association of seropositivity before onset of psychosis and with high antibody titers. A decline of the association was found when baseline exposure in the healthy control population increased.

These findings suggest that T. gondii infection is not merely associated with psychosis and that in schizophrenia a reactivation of a latent T. gondii infection occurs. Several hypotheses remain open about the nature of this association.

Drama therapy is a useful therapy method for improving the life quality of psychiatric patients. Drama therapy is a rehearsal of everyday life. In this therapy method, clients actively join the creative process in order to better understand their life experiences.

Drama therapy may improve patients’ ego functions, psycho-social and self-expression abilities, problem-solving skills, real-life adaptations and contribute to patient's psychiatric treatment.

The main aims were to examine the curative effects of drama group therapy and the effects of drama therapy on functionality in psychiatric patients.

The study was performed at the Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine. Patients were referred from the Psychiatry Polyclinic of this university to Art Therapy and Rehabilitation Program. Drama therapy is an applied drama-based art group therapy. The 10 subjects in our study, ranged from 20 to 50 years old. This therapy group gathered once a week for a ninety minute session. Subjects continued their medical care and received psychotherapy throughout the 24-week study. The therapy plan included an introduction, a warm-up session, a drama therapy work and a sharing session. Patients were assessed in pre and post-treatment with Global Assessment of Functioning and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used for statistical analysis. Yalom's Group Curative Factors Scale was applied.

There was a significant decrease in loss of functioning (P < .05). In Group Curative Factors, the means of hope, identification, group cohesion and altruism were determined high.

Our study demonstrates that drama therapy has positive effects on patients with severe psychiatric patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

According to common-sense model illness representation regulates her coping both in somatic and mental illnesses.

As a personal reaction illness representation should partially depend not only on diagnosis and symptoms but also on personality. Aim is to identify direct and indirect effects of personality and psychopathological complaints in illness representation in mental disorders.

Eighty patients (20 males) from MMPI-2 validation sample (Butcher et al., 2001) filled revised version of Illness Perception Questionnaire and Symptom Checklist 90-R. Eleven patients met ICD-10 criteria for addictions, 28 – for mood disorders, 20 – for schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder, 21 – for acute stress reactions.

According to moderation analysis, illness-related beliefs in mental disorders are relatively independent on clinical diagnosis and specific symptoms, but are associated with the overall level of psychopathological complaints. Regardless of the clinical group and complaints, depressive traits are associated with negative and emotional appraisal of illness. Social introversion and hypomanic activation serve as moderators of the relationship between complaints, illness duration and emotional representations.

Personality and overall level of psychopathological symptoms could be stronger predictor of illness-related beliefs than specific clinical factors in mental illness. Preliminary diagnostics of personality in mental illnesses could be used to reveal high-risk group for poor insight and non-compliance due to unrealistic beliefs. Research supported by the grant of President of the Russian Federation for the state support for young Russian scientists, project MK2193.2017.6.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The new channels of communication as social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) and the social marketing campaign (i.e. campaign focused on enabling, encouraging and supporting behavioural changes among target audiences) can represent useful strategies to challenge stigma attached to mental disorders.

To evaluate the efficacy of the social marketing campaign of the time to change (SMC-TTC) anti-stigma programme on the target population in England during 2009–2014.

To assess the impact of the SMC-TTC anti-stigma programme in terms of:

– use of the social media channels;

– levels of awareness of the SMC-TTC;

– changes in knowledge, attitude, and behaviour related to mental disorders.

Participants completed the mental health knowledge schedule (MAKS), the community attitudes toward mental illness (CAMI) and the reported and intended behaviour scale (RIBS), together with an ad-hoc schedule on socio-demographic characteristics.

In total, 10526 people were interviewed, it was found a growing usage of the SMC-TTC media channels and of the level of awareness of the campaign (P < 0.001). Being aware of the SMC-TTC was found to be associated with higher score at MAKS (OR = .95, CI = .68 to 1.21; P < .001), at “tolerance and support” CAMI subscale (OR = .12, CI = .09 to .16; P < .001) and RIBS (OR = .71, CI = .51 to .92; P < .001), controlling for confounders.

In the general population, SMC-TTC has been found to be effective in improving attitudes and behaviours towards people with mental disorders.

Considering these promising results obtained in England, social media can represent the possible way forward for challenging stigma. The future on-going evaluation of the SMC-TTC may further shed light on the essential role of social media in reducing of stigma and discrimination.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.