Publications by authors named "Armando D'Agostino"

Perinatal depression (PND) is a common complication of pregnancy associated with serious health consequences for both mothers and their babies. Identifying risk factors for PND is key to early detect women at increased risk of developing this condition. We applied a machine learning (ML) approach to data from a multicenter cohort study on sleep and mood changes during the perinatal period ("Life-ON") to derive models for PND risk prediction in a cross-validation setting.

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Schizophrenia is thought to reflect aberrant connectivity within cortico-cortical and reentrant thalamo-cortical loops, which physiologically integrate and coordinate the function of multiple cortical and subcortical structures. Despite extensive research, reliable biomarkers of such "dys-connectivity" remain to be identified at the onset of psychosis, and before exposure to antipsychotic drugs. Because slow waves travel across the brain during sleep, they represent an ideal paradigm to study pathological conditions affecting brain connectivity.

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Article Synopsis
  • Major depressive disorder (MDD) is common and challenging for older adults, and vortioxetine was considered a potential alternative to SSRIs due to its tolerability.
  • A study in Italy involved 357 older adults with MDD who were randomly assigned to receive either vortioxetine or SSRIs, with the main goal of measuring treatment discontinuation due to side effects after six months.
  • The results indicated that while SSRIs had a slightly better tolerability and cognitive performance, there were no significant differences in overall effectiveness or quality of life between vortioxetine and SSRIs for treating MDD.
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Aim: Eating disorders are major illnesses that primarily affect adolescents and young adults and seriously threaten public health. Early identification of at-risk individuals and timely initiation of treatment is crucial to improve outcomes. The Inside Out Institute Screener (IOI-S) is a rapid self-administration screening tool for high-risk and early-stage eating disorders.

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This study aimed to assess the concordance of various psychometric scales in detecting Perinatal Depression (PND) risk and diagnosis. A cohort of 432 women was assessed at 10-15th and 23-25th gestational weeks, 33-40 days and 180-195 days after delivery using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to assess agreement across instruments, and multivariable classification models were developed to predict the values of a binary scale using the other scales.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Life-ON study aimed to assess sleep quality and disorders among pregnant women and postpartum over time, involving 439 participants from local gynecological departments.
  • Results showed that sleep quality worsened throughout pregnancy, with 34% experiencing poor sleep in the first trimester, rising to 71% in the first month postpartum; insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness trends were also noted.
  • The study highlights the high prevalence of sleep disorders during pregnancy and postpartum, stressing the need for routine assessments to enhance early detection and management.
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  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in the use of telepsychiatry, prompting a study to assess the opinions and preferences of service users, carers, and clinicians about its effectiveness.
  • The study involved surveys and focus groups across four sites in the UK and Italy, revealing that telepsychiatry is convenient for specific follow-ups but lacks effectiveness in building therapeutic relationships and assessing acute mental states.
  • Results indicated differing perceptions between clinicians and service users/carers about the quality of telepsychiatry during the pandemic, highlighting the need for a tailored hybrid care model that includes stakeholder preferences and further training for clinicians on telepsychiatry.
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Evidence on long-acting antipsychotics (LAIs) in unselected populations with severe mental illness is scant. In this mirror-image study, we compared multiple clinical outcomes 1 year before and after a first LAI prescription in adults with severe mental illness, describing clinical trajectories of LAI continuers and discontinuers. We compared LAI continuers and discontinuers through Mann-Whitney U test, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, regression for interval-censored data, and a maximum-likelihood mixed-model with individual random-effect and time as predictor.

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Sleep and rest-activity-rhythm (RAR) abnormalities are commonly reported in schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) patients. However, an in-depth characterization of sleep/RAR alterations in SSD, including patients in different treatment settings, and the relationship between these alterations and SSD clinical features (e.g.

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The human brain is the most complex structure generated during development. Unveiling the ontogenesis and the intrinsic organization of specific neural networks may represent a key to understanding the physio-pathological aspects of different brain areas. The cortico-thalamic and thalamo-cortical (CT-TC) circuits process and modulate essential tasks such as wakefulness, sleep and memory, and their alterations may result in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.

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In recent years, machine learning (ML) has been a promising approach in the research of treatment outcome prediction in psychosis. In this study, we reviewed ML studies using different neuroimaging, neurophysiological, genetic, and clinical features to predict antipsychotic treatment outcomes in patients at different stages of schizophrenia. Literature available on PubMed until March 2022 was reviewed.

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Psychosis onset is a transdiagnostic event that leads to a range of psychiatric disorders, which are currently diagnosed through clinical observation. The integration of multimodal biological data could reveal different subtypes of psychosis onset to target for the personalization of care. In this study, we tested the existence of subgroups of patients affected by first-episode psychosis (FEP) with a possible immunopathogenic basis.

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Purpose/background: Based on a population-pharmacokinetic model, the European Medicines Agency has recently approved a simplified starting strategy of aripiprazole once a month (AOM), injectable and long-acting antipsychotic, with two 400 mg injections and a single oral 20 mg dose of aripiprazole, administered on the same day, instead of 1 injection and 14 daily administrations of concurrent oral aripiprazole. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has reported the safety and tolerability of this regimen in real-world patients.

Methods/procedures: We retrospectively reviewed medical records of 133 patients who received the newly approved 2-injection start regimen as part of their standard care in 10 Italian clinical centers.

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Background: Attachment theory represents one of the most important references for the study of the development of an individual throughout their life cycle and provides the clinician with a profound key for the purposes of understanding the suffering that underlies severe psychopathologies such as eating disorders. As such, we conducted a cross-sectional study with a mixed-methods analysis on a sample of 32 young women with anorexia nervosa (AN); this study was embedded in the utilized theoretical framework with the following aims: 1. to evaluate the state of mind (SoM) in relation to adult attachment, assuming a prevalence of the dismissing (DS) SoM and 2.

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The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have increased pre-existing inequalities and risk factors for mental disorders in general, but perinatal mental disorders are of particular concern. They are already underdiagnosed and undertreated, and this has been magnified by the pandemic. Access to services (both psychiatric and obstetric) has been reduced, and in-person contact has been restricted because of the increased risks.

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Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics are often used for the long-term management also of bipolar disorder (BD). Nonetheless, evidence on their effect on pragmatic outcomes such as hospitalization risk in BD is inconsistent. We carried out a mirror-image study comparing rates and number of days of hospitalization, one year before and after the initiation of LAI treatment, in a sample of subjects with BD.

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Introduction: Conducted under the auspices of the Italian Society of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry (SIPC) the aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry (CLP) activity in Italy (SIPC-2-2018) over the past 20 years by comparing with data from the first Italian nation-wide study (SIPC-1-1998).

Methods: We collected data on CLP visits of 3,943 patients from 10 Italian hospitals over a period of 1 year. Data were compared with those from the SIPC-1 1998 study (4,183 participants).

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Article Synopsis
  • Perinatal depression (PND) is a serious issue during pregnancy, and this study investigates whether a woman's chronotype (her natural sleep-wake cycle) could predict PND symptoms.
  • Researchers followed 299 women from early pregnancy to six months postpartum, assessing their chronotype and mood over time using various depression rating scales.
  • Results showed that evening chronotypes faced a higher risk of PND symptoms shortly after giving birth, coupled with less healthy lifestyles and more complications during pregnancy, indicating the need to evaluate chronotype in pregnant women to identify those at risk for PND.
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Brain incidental findings (IFs) are unexpected brain abnormalities detected by a structural magnetic resonance (MRI) examination. We conducted a study to assess whether brain IFs are associated with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and chronic psychosis (affective vs. non-affective) compared to healthy controls (HC).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the psychological effects experienced by COVID-19 patients hospitalized during the pandemic, specifically focusing on anxiety, depression, PTSD, and post-traumatic growth six months after discharge.
  • Out of 100 participants, significant percentages reported anxiety (34%), depression (24%), and 20% showed signs of potential PTSD, with these symptoms linked to prior mood disorders and receiving psychological care post-discharge.
  • Younger patients and those who sought psychological consultation after discharge experienced higher levels of post-traumatic growth, highlighting the importance of mental health support for recovering COVID-19 patients.
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