End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients have difficult and challenging lifestyle due to the burden of the disease that, leads to numerous psychological issues. Regardless, healthcare providers usually focus on the somatic side and don’t take care of the psychological dimension.

Determine the effect of psychological support on the wellbeing of patients with ESRD.

A survey sheet including sociodemographic and clinical data were distributed to two different groups. Psychological counseling was given to one of the groups, and wasn’t given to the other one.

Patients not receiving psychological support had higher levels of anxious and depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations compared to the group receiving psychological support that had lower levels of anxious, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation.

ESRD patients are at risk of developing all sorts of psychological issues. Which underlines the importance of the psychological support associated to the appropriate somatic care.

No significant relationships.

Acute and transient psychotic disorders are a rare condition entity as the sudden appearance of affective, confusional symptoms and paranoia triggered by some psychological trauma. The current pandemic caused by COVID-19 is an important psychological stressor that could favor the appearance of acute psychotic disorders. Several studies have been recently published proposing that the multifactorial stress associated with lockdown could function as a catalyst for acute psychotic disorders.

To present a case of a brief psychotic disorder during the national lockdown in Spain and to review the literature about the relationship between the current pandemic and psychosis.

We will present a case report and a literature review.

We report a case of a 27-year-old woman, with no previous psychiatric history. Three weeks after the start of Spain lockdown sudden symptoms appeared with psychomotor restlessness, confused speech, emotional lability, thought blocking and persecutory and referential delusions. Physical exam, blood analysis and cerebral CT scan with no alterations. Treatment was performed with aripiprazole 10 mg and lorazepam 1 mg daily with clinical improvement in one weeks. She was diagnosed of Acute transient psychotic disorder.

Stressful life events that can trigger psychosis in vulnerable individuals and the current pandemic and lockdown context could favor the appearance of acute psychotic disorders. The case reported here is in line with other current studies that show a preliminary intuition of this trend.

Psychopathy has been individuated as an important predictor of criminal recidivism. As a consequence, a growing number of studies has examined factors associated with psychopathic traits in criminal population. While spitefulness has been associated with a range of destructive behaviors, there is a paucity of instruments that evaluate the spitefulness (Marcus & Zeigler-Hill, 2015).

Testing the validity and reliability of an Italian version of the Spitefulness Scale.

Correlate Spitefulness Scale scores and other indices of psychological functioning. We recruited an offenders sample (n = 400) and a community sample (n = 400). We administered the Spitefulness Scale (Marcus, 2014), along with the following measures: Dirty Dozen (Carmines & Zeller, 1979), Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), and SRP (Hare, 1980).

Offenders participants showed higher levels of spitefulness. Further, the construct validity of the scale was confirmed by associations with measures of psychopathy, emotion dysregulation, and interpersonal problems.

The use of the Italian version of the Spitefulness Scale seemed promising for the study of emotion recognition in both clinical and nonclinical samples.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

Existing research shows that individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ) show substantial deficits in social cognitive domains, including facial emotion recognition (FER), empathy, and Theory of Mind (ToM). Their exact relationship with the different dimensions included in the “Clinician- Rated Dimensions of Psychosis Symptom Severity” of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) remains unexplored.

To investigate the relationship between different social cognition dimensions and the dimensions of psychosis included in the DSM-5.

Fifty-eight outpatients with stable SCZ completed the Intention-Inferencing Task (IIT), a non-verbal ToM task and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE). They also completed a newly developed and validated FER task constructed from photographs of the face of a famous Tunisian actress and evaluating the ability to correctly identify Ekman's six basic facial emotions. The clinician-rated dimensions of psychosis symptom severity was used to evaluate 8 dimensions of psychosis.

The patients presenting higher cognitive empathy capacities had less present abnormal psychomotor behaviour scores (P = 0.05). Higher levels of affective empathy were correlated to lower present delusions score (P = 0.037). Better scores in the IIT were correlated to less present negative scores (P = 0.013) and less impaired cognition scores (P = 0.009). FER task score didn’t correlated with any clinical dimension.

Our results suggest the existence of specific relationships between social cognition dimensions and psychosis dimensions. Further studies are needed to confirm these relationships.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Main objective was to assess the prevalence of burnout in Tunisian primary care practitioners working in public sector in the region of the Cap Bon. Secondary objectives were to determine the risk factors and the consequences associated with this syndrome.

transversal study using four scales: Anonymous auto questionnaire elaborated by the medical team, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the Beck Depression inventory (BDI) and the state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI). The MBI explores the three dimensions of Burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. In our study, the Burnout was defined by the presence of two or three pathological dimensions.

113 questionnaires were exploitable (85.6% of the sample). The results of the MBI showed that one third of doctors suffer from Burnout and 7.1% have severe attaints. 35% of the doctors had high score of emotional exhaustion, 21% had high depersonalization and 40% had a low score of personal accomplishment. The Burnout was significantly associated with depression (p < 0.001), suicidality (p=0.023) and anxious temperament (p< 0.001). On the other hand, a continued medical education protected significantly against the Burnout (p=0.003). Professional exhaustion was significantly related to the wish of reconversion (p=0.023) and to relational difficulties with patients and colleagues. The solutions proposed were the increase of the number of doctors and a better education of medical students in general medicine.

Huntington’s disease is typically an inherited neurodegenerative disorder with autosomal dominant transmission. Early disease symptoms can include depression and behavioral changes, while physical and cognitive symptoms become evident later. Suicide and suicidal ideation are more frequent in these patients than on the general population. We present the case of a 50-year-old female patient with a history of depression and suicidal intents previous to her diagnosis. The patient committed suicide approximately 20 years after the beginning of her psychiatric symptoms.

To report a clinical case of early psychiatric symptoms and suicide in Huntington’s disease; To raise awareness for these comorbidities and for an adequate intervention in suicide prevention.

The information was obtained by interviewing the patient and her family and by reviewing past medical reports. A brief literature review using the keywords “suicide”, “Huntington´s disease” and “psychiatric symptoms” was performed on PubMed.

The patient had a history of depression and five hospital admissions for suicidal intents during the ten years prior to the diagnosis. After the diagnosis and the beginning of physical symptoms, she maintained suicidal ideation until she committed suicide ten years later.

This clinical case underlines the importance of being alert for early psychiatric symptoms of Huntington’s disease, especially if considering the patients’ probability of developing it. It also reinforces the need for suicidal ideation regular assessment and for pharmacological and non-pharmacological targeted therapy. Further investigation should be taken to understand which factors increase the risk for suicidal behavior and which moments during disease progression are crucial for prevention.

No significant relationships.

Previous studies provided inconsistent evidences for the effect of apolipoprotein E ɛ4 (APOE ɛ4) status on the visuospatial working memory (VSWM). Our study was the first investigation with event-related potential (ERP) to explore the effect of APOE ɛ4 on VSWM in healthy elders and aMCI patients.

The aim was to investigate the effect of APOE ɛ4 on VSWM with event-related potential (ERP) study in healthy elders and aMCI patients.

Thirty-nine aMCI patients (27 APOE ɛ4 non-carriers and 12 APOE ɛ4 carriers) and 43 their matched control (25 APOE ɛ4 non-carriers and 18 APOE ɛ4 carriers) performed an N-back task, a VSWM paradigm that manipulated the number of items to be stored in memory.

Our study detected reduced accuracy and delayed mean correct response time in aMCI patients than healthy elders. P300 was elicited by VSWM and its amplitude was lower in aMCI patients at the central-parietal and parietal electrodes than healthy controls. In healthy elders, P300 amplitude declined prior to task performance change in APOE ɛ4 carriers than non-carriers. Regarding aMCI patients, P300 amplitude result revealed exacerbated VSWM deficits in APOE ɛ4 carriers than APOE ɛ4 non-carriers. Additionally, standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography analysis (s-LORETA) result showed enhanced brain activation in right parahippocampal gyrus during P300 time range in APOE ɛ4 carriers than non-carriers in aMCI patients (Fig. 1, Tables 1 and 2).

It demonstrated that P300 amplitude might serve as a biomarker for recognizing aMCI patients and contribute to early detection of worse VSWM in APOE ɛ4 carriers than non-carriers.

The author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

Psychological distress appears in the majority of people infected with HIV. Depression is the most important affection, the prevalence in comparison with general population arises to 37%. Psychotic symptoms in patients with HIV are a very frequent entity, in some cases, these symptoms are pre-existent in others the evolution of the infection or a medical cause related with the infection can cause its apparition. Psychosis and depression in patients with HIV have some clinical and therapeutical considerations. Antidepressants and antipsychotics have many pharmacological interactions with antiretroviral therapy.

Review the efficacy and safety of antidepressants and antipsychotics in patients with HIV infection.

PubMed was searched for articles published between 1966 and January 1, 2015, using the search terms HIV, AIDS, depression, phycosis, antipsychotics, antidepressants, antiretrovirals. We selected randomized placebo controlled or active comparator control trials.

Twelve studies for depression treatment and 2 studies for psychosis treatment in patients with HIV infection. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) especially fluoxetine and tryciclic antidepressants are effective in treating depressive symptoms in patients with HIV infection. Testosterone and stimulants have been used in patients with mild depressive symptoms, however studies with these agents had a small sample size. Haloperidol and chlorpromazine were effective for AIDS delirium, there are not controlled trials with other antipsychotics.

Psychiatrists must be concern about the clinical particularities of patients with HIV and depression or psychotic symptoms. The election of antidepressant or antipsychotic has to be made very carefully because of their side effects and interactions.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

GAD and disturbed sleep are prevalent, debilitating, and frequently comorbid problems for which successful treatment remains limited. The adoption of regular exercise can promote sleep but whether it does so for GAD patients is unknown.

To quantify the magnitude of the effect of six weeks of either twice weekly resistance (RET) or aerobic exercise training (AET) on self-reported sleep among GAD patients

Thirty sedentary women, aged 18-37 years, with a primary DSM-IV diagnosis of GAD were randomized to RET, AET, or wait list (WL). RET involved two weekly sessions of lower-body weightlifting. AET involved two weekly sessions of leg cycling matched to RET on exercise time, work performed and weekly load progression. Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Diary daily for seven days at baseline and week six. Sleep outcomes included total sleep time (TST), bedtime, time in bed (TIB), sleep onset latency (SOL), wakefulness after sleep onset, and sleep efficiency, calculated as TST divided by TIB and expressed as a percentage. Hedges’ d effect sizes and associated 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated for each exercise condition compared to WL. Twenty participants provided complete data and were included in analyses.

RET decreased weekend TST (d=-1.23; 95%CI:-2.27, −0.18), TIB (d=-2.01; 95%CI:-3.29, −0.72), and SOL (d=-2.05; 95%CI:-3.34, −0.76), and increased weekend sleep efficiency (d=1.32; 95%CI:0.16, 2.47). AET reduced weekend SOL (d=-1.87, 95%CI:-3.17, −0.56) and TIB (d=-1.45, 95%CI:-2.68, −0.23).

Preliminary findings suggest that short-term exercise training improves self-reported sleep parameters among GAD patients.

Ekbom syndrome is a delusional parasitosis in which the patient has the delusion of infestation by parasites. This condition might occur in concordance with senile dementia or cerebrovascular disease, but it is also present in mood disorders or schizophrenia.

To present a clinical description of a delusional parasitosis that appeared in a young nigerian women after she immigrated in France.

Our case is suggestive for showing that delusional parasitosis might develop in circumstances of social vulnerability such as the immigration and might have different cultural aspects.

We present the case of a 29 years old nigerian women that developed a delusional parasitosis 3 years after her arrival in France. The diagnosis was based on a carefully detailed clinical history, an MMSE was also applied. In order to exclude secondary causes an extensive laboratory evaluation was performed including: complete blood cell count, liver, renal and thyroid function tests, serum electrolytes and glucose levels, vitamin B12, folate, iron studies, coproanalysis, neuroimaging.

The patient had all laboratory and neuroimaging tests normal. She presented a delusional parasitosis and she described an infestation with multiple intestinal worms. She was capable of describing them and their movements under the skin and also in all the organs. She described dracunculiasis and three more different species that are commonly present in Nigeria, she never mentioned lice or mites.

Ekbom syndrome is a delusion of hallucinatory mechanism that might have different cultural presentations and could be favored by social vulnerability such as immigration.

Nowadays the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) lacks any treatment with administrative approval. International prestige guidelines accept the generalized use of atypical antipsychotics by clinicians for this disorder, including quetiapine.

To evaluate the clinical effect of Quetiapine in the treatment of BPD and the patient's perception of this treatment.

Multi-center, naturalistic, retrospective study. Patients over 18 with BPD diagnoses (DSM-IV-TR) in treatment with quetiapine for the previous 6 months were included. Assessments: CGI-C (Clinical Global Impression of Change), DAI-10 (Drug Attitude Inventory, 10 item) and a likert scale measuring the patient's subjective compliance.

105 patients were included. Mean age was 35.25±9.68 years old. 53.3% were male. Mean dose of Quetiapine was 422.06 mg/day (SD:171.42). The CGI-C results showed that 94.3% of the patients improved along the previous 6 months in treatment with quetiapine; 5,7% had no changes and 0% impaired. According to the DAI-10 results most of the patients thought good things about medication outweighed the bad (82,9%), took medication of their own free choice (72,4%) and associated treatment with breakdowns prevention (75.2%). Regarding to the perception of quetiapine most of the patients felt more relaxed (89.5%), with clearer thoughts (62.9%) and didn't associate treatment with sluggishness (62.9%) or strangeness and doping-up (74.3%). 96.1% of the patients reported compliance over 70%.

Clinicians found quetiapine effective for treating BPD and most of the patients perceived it positively and showed high levels of compliance

Schizophrenia leads to functional deficits. A third of schizophrenia patients have obsessive compulsive symptoms (OCSs). The existing studies, which have investigated the effect of OCSs on social functioning (SF) of schizophrenia patients have produced contradictory findings and, interestingly, they have not adjusted for the role of executive functioning.

To investigate the predictive role of OCSs on SF in schizophrenia controlling for the effects of executive functioning.

In a cross-sectional study of 110 chronic schizophrenia patients we assessed OCSs (Yale-Brown Scale), SF (Strauss Carpenter Scale) and composite executive function (cognitive flexibility: Intra–extra dimensional set shifting task and planning: Stockings of Cambridge task) using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). We also measured total symptoms (PANSS total scores) and illness duration. Regression analysis tested the predicting role of OCSs (YBOCS total score) on functioning taking into account executive function (composite score) duration of illness and schizophrenia symptoms.

OCSs were associated with better SF (B = 0.099; 95% CI = 0.019, 0.180; t = 2.449; df = 88; P = 0.016). This result was driven by the association of OCSs with job functioning (B = 0.043; 95% CI = 0.006, 0.081; t = 2.289; df = 88; P = 0.024). Executive functions were not significantly associated with social functioning.

OCSs and not executive functions are associated with social functioning in schizophrenia. Future studies should examine whether OCSs represent a compensatory mechanism aiming at preserving social functioning in the disorder.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Effective preventive strategies could reduce disability and the long term social and health complications associated with depression, but options are limited. Cognitive bias modification (CBM) is a novel, simple, and safe intervention that corrects the attentional and interpretive biases associated with depression.

To determine if CBM decreases the one-year onset of major depression in adults at risk.

This randomised controlled trial will recruit adults with subsyndromal depression living in Australia (parallel design, 1:1 allocation ratio). The intervention will be delivered via the internet over 52 weeks. The primary outcome of interest is the onset of a major depression according to DSM-IV-TR criteria. Secondary outcomes of interest include change in the severity of depressive (Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-9) and changes in attention and interpretive biases. Outcomes will be collected 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after randomisation.

Preliminary data on a subsample of 20 participants showed that the mean±SE PHQ-9 score of controls was 7.5±0.9 at study entry and 7.1±1.5 at week 6 (paired t-test=0.29, p=0.779), whereas the mean±SE score of active CBM participants was 7.4±1.0 and 4.4±1.1, respectively (paired t=6.00, p<0.001). The mean PHQ-9 difference between control and active CBM participants over 6 weeks was 2.6±1.5 points (t=1.79, p=0.090). One of 11 controls (9.1%) and 0/9 active CBM participants showed evidence of clinically significant depressive symptoms at week 6 (i.e., PHQ-9≥15).

By March 2015, 6-months preliminary data will be available on 165 participants.