Psychopathology Of Psychiatric Disorders Research Articles

Association between decreased serum albumin levels and depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia in a Chinese Han population: A pilot study

Albumin is a metal-binding protein with free-radical scavenging properties and is recognized as a vital antioxidant. Moreover, an excess of free radicals may contribute to depressive symptoms and the psychopathology of psychiatric disorders. This study examined serum albumin levels, depressive symptoms, and their association in patients with schizophrenia. Thirty-four patients with schizophrenia (diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth edition) and 136 healthy controls were consecutively enrolled in this case-control study. The clinical psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Serum albumin levels were measured in all participants using an immunoturbidimetric method. This study was conducted between 2016 and 2017. Serum albumin levels were significantly lower in patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls after adjusting for gender, age and education (F = 16.04, p = 0.000). Serum albumin levels were negatively correlated with the depressive score of PANSS in patients with schizophrenia (r = −0.37, p = 0.03). Additionally, a further stepwise multivariate regression analysis showed that serum albumin levels were significantly associated with the depressive score of PANSS in patients with schizophrenia (ß = −0.37, t = −2.25, p = 0.03). Our data suggested that decreased serum albumin levels may contribute to the psychopathology of schizophrenia and that a decline in serum albumin levels was associated with the severity of depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

Involuntary admissions in Italy: the impact of seasonality

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of involuntary admissions with regard to seasonality and clinical associated features, in a sample of patients admitted to a psychiatric unit in a period of 24 months.Methods: All subjects consecutively admitted to the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit of the San Luigi Gonzaga Hospital, Orbassano (University of Turin, Italy) from September 2013 to August 2015 were recruited. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were collected.Results: Seven hundred and thirty admissions in psychiatric ward were recognized. The prevalence of involuntary admission was 15.4%. Patients with involuntary hospitalizations showed a higher education level, a higher prevalence of admission in spring/summer with a significant peak in June, a longer duration of hospitalization and a lower suicide ideation. Among involuntary admissions, physical restraint and suicide attempts were more prevalent during spring compared to the other seasons.Conclusions: Seasonality has an important role in the psychopathology of psychiatric disorders, particularly in bipolar and related disorder, and may represent an influencing factor in hospital admissions and hospitalizations. Seasonal pattern must be considered while managing diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, with regard to prevention and psychoeducation of patients.

Fear conditioning induced by interpersonal conflicts in healthy individuals.

Psychophysiological markers have been focused to investigate the psychopathology of psychiatric disorders and personality subtypes. In order to understand neurobiological mechanisms underlying these conditions, fear-conditioning model has been widely used. However, simple aversive stimuli are too simplistic to understand mechanisms because most patients with psychiatric disorders are affected by social stressors. The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of a newly-designed conditioning experiment using a stimulus to cause interpersonal conflicts and examine associations between personality traits and response to that stimulus. Twenty-nine healthy individuals underwent the fear conditioning and extinction experiments in response to three types of stimuli: a simple aversive sound, disgusting pictures, and pictures of an actors’ face with unpleasant verbal messages that were designed to cause interpersonal conflicts. Conditioned response was quantified by the skin conductance response (SCR). Correlations between the SCR changes, and personality traits measured by the Zanarini Rating Scale for Borderline Personality Disorder (ZAN-BPD) and Revised NEO Personality Inventory were explored. The interpersonal conflict stimulus resulted in successful conditioning, which was subsequently extinguished, in a similar manner as the other two stimuli. Moreover, a greater degree of conditioned response to the interpersonal conflict stimulus correlated with a higher ZAN-BPD total score. Fear conditioning and extinction can be successfully achieved, using interpersonal conflicts as a stimulus. Given that conditioned fear caused by the interpersonal conflicts is likely associated with borderline personality traits, this paradigm could contribute to further understanding of underlying mechanisms of interpersonal fear implicated in borderline personality disorder.

Family patterns of psychopathology in psychiatric disorders

ObjectiveFamilial loading and crucial outcomes of family history of psychopathology in psychiatric disorders have long been recognized. There has been ample literature providing convincing evidence for the importance of family psychopathology in development of emotional disturbances in children as well as worse outcomes in the course of psychiatric disorders. More often, maternal psychopathology seems to have been an issue of interest rather than paternal psychopathology while effects of second-degree familiality have received almost no attention. In this study, we addressed the relations between affected first- and second-degree relatives of probands and categories of psychiatric disorders. MethodSubjects were 350 hospitalized psychiatric inpatients, consecutively admitted to psychiatry clinics in Van, Turkey. Mean age was 34.16 (SD±12) and 51.4% of the sample consisted of male patients. Assessment of psychopathology in psychiatric probands was conducted based on DSM-IV TR. Familial loading of psychiatric disorders amongst first- and second-degree relatives of patients were initially noted primarily relying on patients' retrospective reports, and confirmed by both phone call and following official health records via the Medical Knowledge System. We analyzed the data using latent class analysis approach. ResultsWe found four patterns of familial psychopathology. Latent homogeneous subsets of patients due to familial characteristics were as paternal kinship psychopathology with schizophrenia, paternal kinship psychopathology with mood disorders, maternal kinship psychopathology and core family psychopathology. ConclusionFamily patterns were critical to exerting variation in psychiatric disorders of probands and affected relatives. Probands with a core family pattern of psychopathology exhibited the most colorful clinical presentations in terms of variation in psychopathology. We observed a specificity of intergenerational transmission of psychiatric disorders when family patterns of psychopathology were taken into consideration, even second-degree relatives of psychiatric probands.

2871 – Capgras syndrome and mignon delusion - delusional misidentification syndromes

Introdaction: Delusional misidentification syndromes are specific groups of psychopathological symptoms. In rare cases, can occur independently but are often part of the other psychopathology in psychiatric disorders of organic or endogenous origin. Capgras syndrome indicates that the patient misrecognizes close relative, claims to have acquaintances replaced with someone who look-alike, that someone has entered the body of their relative and therefore he/she only physically resembles. In Mignon delusion patient believes that parents were not his/hers, but that real parents are from noble origin. To show the course of the disease and the clinical manifestation in schizophrenic patient, who during several annual treatment developed symptoms of Capgras syndrome and Mignon delusion. 72 year old female patient was admitted to the hospital due to deterioration of mental state.On admission in mental status dominated: accelerated opinion in form and in content with plenty paranoid ideas she also said: This is not my husband. Sometimes I know that this man wears a mask, so he looks like him, but my husband is not here he is in the U.S. Insight into previous medical records,showed that in the previous hospitalization she amounted symptoms of Mignon delusion and was saying that her parents were not hers and that she is a descendant of a noble family. It is Significant that those symptoms were followed after minor head injury. Dynamics of changes in symptoms indicates the importance of further processing in order to determine whether these symptoms were result of underlying disease or may be caused by an organic lesion that is very often in the same substrate.

S07-03 - Psychopathology of psychiatric disorders during pregnancy and postpartum

Contrary to the previously spread myth, pregnancy does not protect women from either relapses of previously diagnosed psychiatric illness nor development of new ones. Prevalence of psychiatric illnesses during pregnancy is similar to that in the general population, whereas that number significantly increases in the postpartum period. Peripartum has its own uniqueness for both etiology and presentation of different psychopathological conditions.Multiple studies have been published describing affective, anxiety, and psychotic illnesses in peripartum. Specific psychosocial circumstances during that time along with multiple physiological changes occurring in female body in that reproductive period predispose women with and without previous psychiatric histories, to various psychiatric illnesses. Several potential contributing factors for these phenomena have been proposed so far. One of the most frequently studied ones has been the drastic hormonal shift occurring during peripartum that could directly increase the sensitivity for developing mood instability, anxiety and/or psychotic symptoms. Genetic predisposition and previously existing psychiatric disorder especially those occuring during specific reproductive phases significantly increase the risk as well. Presentation of psychiatric illnesses during peripartum has its’ particularities which are essential to understand of in order to provide an appropriate care.Being aware of the potential etiology and risk factors as well as sensitivity to psychopathology of some women in peripartum could greatly improve treatment as well as open up avenues for prevention in this area. Unrecognized and untreated psychiatric illnesses in peripartum have serious consequences.