White Noise Speech Illusions: A Trait-Dependent Risk Marker for Psychotic Disorder?

Supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI)

The state of psychiatry in Spain

The 1986 General Health Act and the so-called 'psychiatric reform' were key issues in the development of the mental healthcare system (MHCS) in Spain. The World Health Organization Declaration and Action Plan on Mental Health in 2005 gave it a revitalizing impetus and resulted in the first National Health System (NHS) Mental Health Strategy in 2006. A literature search was performed using MEDLINE, Spanish journals, reference lists, national databases, and European and Spanish official documents to describe the current state of the MHCS in Spain. The main results were: (1) existence of great variability among the autonomous communities with respect to mental health resources and provision of…

A clinical staging model for bipolar disorder: longitudinal approach

AbstractBipolar disorder (BD) has been identified as a life-course illness with different clinical manifestations from an at-risk to a late stage, supporting the assumption that it would benefit from a staging model. In a previous study, we used a clustering approach to stratify 224 patients with a diagnosis of BD into five clusters based on clinical characteristics, functioning, cognition, general health, and health-related quality of life. This study was design to test the construct validity of our previously developed k-means clustering model and to confirm its longitudinal validity over a span of 3 years. Of the 224 patients included at baseline who were used to develop our model, 129 (…

Sex differences in bipolar disorder: Impact of lifetime cannabis use on clinical course, functioning, and quality of life in bipolar disorder.

Cannabis use is markedly prevalent among patients with bipolar disorder (BD). However, to date, there have been no studies on this issue with a sex-based approach. This study examines if lifetime cannabis use (LCU) is differently associated with clinical course, functioning, and quality of life (QoL) in patients with BD by sex.Secondary analysis of a cross-sectional, naturalistic, multicentre study. LCU was defined as having had at least one day of use per month for at least 12 consecutive months in a patient's life.A total of 224 patients with BD were included (65.2% women). Patients with LCU were younger (p = 0.001) and had their first hospitalization earlier (p0.005) than those without L…

Classification of patients with bipolar disorder using k-means clustering.

Introduction Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heterogeneous disorder needing personalized and shared decisions. We aimed to empirically develop a cluster-based classification that allocates patients according to their severity for helping clinicians in these processes. Methods Naturalistic, cross-sectional, multicenter study. We included 224 subjects with BD (DSM-IV-TR) under outpatient treatment from 4 sites in Spain. We obtained information on sociodemography, clinical course, psychopathology, cognition, functioning, vital signs, anthropometry and lab analysis. Statistical analysis: k-means clustering, comparisons of between group variables, and expert criteria. Results and discussion We obtain…

Spanish validation of the Empirically Developed Clinical Staging Model (EmDe-5) for patients with bipolar disorder

Abstract Introduction Bipolar disorder (BD) has been reconceptualised as a progressive disorder that develops from mild to severe presentations. An empirical staging model – the Empirically Developed Clinical Staging Model for BD (EmDe-5) – was developed in a previous study. This study aims to further validate that model using a larger and more representative Spanish sample. Material and methods 183 BD outpatients were recruited at 11 sites in Spain. Assessment included clinical characteristics of the BD (number of hospitalisations, number of suicide attempts, comorbid personality disorders), physical health (BMI, metabolic syndrome, number of physical illnesses), cognition (SCIP), function…

Prepare the smoking cessation in severe mental illness: Early diagnosis and prevention opportunities

Long term outcomes of pharmacological treatments for opioid dependence: does methadone still lead the pack?

The aim of this review was to update and summarize the scientific knowledge on the long term outcomes of the different pharmacological treatment options for opioid dependence currently available and to provide a critical discussion on the different treatment options based on these results. We performed a literature search using the PubMed databases and the reference lists of the identified articles. Data from research show that the three pharmacological options reviewed are effective treatments for opioid dependence with positive long term outcomes. However, each one has its specific target population and setting. While methadone and buprenorphine are first line options, heroin-assisted tre…

Lifestyle in Undergraduate Students and Demographically Matched Controls during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain

Few studies have used a multidimensional approach to describe lifestyle changes among undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic or have included controls. This study aimed to evaluate lifestyle behaviors and mental health of undergraduate students and compare them with an age and sex-matched control group. A cross-sectional web survey using snowball sampling was conducted several months after the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. A sample of 221 students was recruited. The main outcome was the total SMILE-C score. Students showed a better SMILE-C score than controls (79.8 + 8.1 vs. 77.2 + 8.3

Are affective temperaments determinants of quality of life in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder?

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a disabling illness that is associated with low quality of life (QoL). This low QoL goes further than mood episodes, which suggests that stable traits, such as affective temperaments, can cause functional impairment. Objective: Our study analyses the impact of affective temperaments on the Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) of QoL in euthymic BD patients. Methods: A multicentre study was conducted in 180 euthymic BD patients and 95 healthy controls. Firstly, statistical analyses were performed to compare QoL and affective temperaments between the two groups. Secondly, Adaptive Lasso Analysis was carried out to identify th…

A replication study of JTC bias, genetic liability for psychosis and delusional ideation

The EUGEI project was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). Dr O'Donovan is supported by MRC programme grant (G08005009) and an MRC Centre grant (MR/L010305/1)

Estimating Exposome Score for Schizophrenia Using Predictive Modeling Approach in Two Independent Samples: The Results From the EUGEI Study

The EUGEI project was supported by the grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme. The authors are grateful to the patients and their families for participating in the project. They also thank all research personnel involved in the GROUP project, in particular J. van Baaren, E. Veermans, G. Driessen, T. Driesen, E. van’t Hag and J. de Nijs. Bart PF Rutten was funded by a VIDI award number 91718336 from the Netherlands Scientific Organisation.

"Readiness to Change" Predicts Efficacy of Reduction among Smokers with Severe Mental Illness.

<b><i>Aims:</i></b> Smoking cessation in subjects with a severe mental illness (SMI) is a challenging but attainable goal. Furthermore, the identification of variables involved in the quitting process is a highly relevant factor in clinical practice. This study aimed to analyze the influence of smokers’ motivation in smoking reduction and cessation and select the most suitable way of measuring motivation. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> This is a secondary analysis of a 9-month, multicenter trial examining a Multicomponent Smoking Cessation Program in 82 adult outpatients with SMI. At the end of the preparation stage, the smokers’ motivational level wa…

Could structural changes in the retinal layers be a new biomarker of mental disorders? A systematic review and thematic synthesis.

It has recently been suggested that alterations of the layers of the retina could be a biomarker of specific mental disorders since they originate in the same embryonic layer as the brain and both are interconnected through the optic nerve. The purpose of this article is to offer a systematic review of the literature and a thematic synthesis on the current state of the alterations of the retina layers identified by optical coherence tomography in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression. For this purpose, we performed a bibliographic search, a systematic review of the studies and a thematic synthesis of the reported findings. Patients with schizophrenia have more a…

Evidence, and replication thereof, that molecular-genetic and environmental risks for psychosis impact through an affective pathway

AbstractBackgroundThere is evidence that environmental and genetic risk factors for schizophrenia spectrum disorders are transdiagnostic and mediated in part through a generic pathway of affective dysregulation.MethodsWe analysed to what degree the impact of schizophrenia polygenic risk (PRS-SZ) and childhood adversity (CA) on psychosis outcomes was contingent on co-presence of affective dysregulation, defined as significant depressive symptoms, in (i) NEMESIS-2 (n = 6646), a representative general population sample, interviewed four times over nine years and (ii) EUGEI (n = 4068) a sample of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, the siblings of these patients and controls.ResultsT…

Los cambios estructurales de la retina, ¿nuevos biomarcadores de los trastornos mentales? Una revisión sistemática y síntesis temática de la literatura

Resumen Recientemente se ha planteado que las alteraciones de las capas de la retina podrian ser un biomarcador de determinados trastornos mentales, al derivar esta de la misma capa embrionaria que el cerebro y estar conectada con este a traves del nervio optico. El objeto del presente articulo es ofrecer una revision sistematica de la literatura y una sintesis tematica sobre el estado actual de las alteraciones de las capas de la retina identificadas mediante tomografia de coherencia optica en los pacientes con esquizofrenia, trastorno bipolar y depresion mayor. Para ello se realizo una busqueda sistematica de la literatura, la lectura critica de los articulos seleccionados y la sintesis t…

Replication of previous genome-wide association studies of psychiatric diseases in a large schizophrenia case-control sample from Spain.

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) has allowed the discovery of some interesting risk variants for schizophrenia (SCZ). However, this high-throughput approach presents some limitations, being the most important the necessity of highly restrictive statistical corrections as well as the loss of statistical power inherent to the use of a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis approach. These problems can be partially solved through the use of a polygenic approach. We performed a genotyping study in SCZ using 86 previously associated SNPs identified by GWAS of SCZ, bipolar disorder (BPD) and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) patients. The sample consisted of 3063 independent cases wit…

Examining the association between exposome score for schizophrenia and functioning in schizophrenia, siblings, and healthy controls: results from the EUGEI study

European Community's Seventh Framework Program, European Commission [HEALTH-F2-2009-241909]; Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program; Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SAM16PE07CP1, PI16/02012, and PI19/024)...

Lifestyle changes and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A repeated, cross-sectional web survey

VBM acknowledges the national grant PI16/01770 from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, ISCIII (The PROBILIFE study). EV thanks the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PI15/00283, PI18/00805) integrated into the Plan Nacional de I+D+I and co-financed by the ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER); the Instituto de Salud Carlos III; the CIBER of Mental Health (CIBERSAM) (...)

Sexual Dysfunction and Mood Stabilizers in Long-Term Stable Patients With Bipolar Disorder.

Abstract Background In addition to factors intrinsic to bipolar disorder (BD), sexual functioning (SF) can be affected by extrinsic causes, such as psychotropic drugs. However, the effect of mood stabilizers on SF and quality of life (QoL) is an underexplored research area. Aim To analyze SF in BD outpatients in euthymia for at least 6 months treated only with mood stabilizers and the association between SF and QoL. Methods A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in 114 BD outpatients treated with (i) lithium alone (L group); (ii) anticonvulsants alone (valproate or lamotrigine; A group); (iii) lithium plus anticonvulsants (L+A group); or (iv) lithium plus benzodiazepines (L+B gro…