How different countries respond to adverse events whilst patients' rights are protected.

Patient safety is high on the policy agenda internationally. Learning from safety incidents is a core component in achieving the important goal of increasing patient safety. This study explores the legal frameworks in the countries to promote reporting, disclosure, and supporting healthcare professionals (HCPs) involved in safety incidents.

Identifying gene-environment interactions in schizophrenia: contemporary challenges for integrated, large-scale investigations.

Recent years have seen considerable progress in epidemiological and molecular genetic research into environmental and genetic factors in schizophrenia, but methodological uncertainties remain with regard to validating environmental exposures, and the population risk conferred by individual molecular genetic variants is small. There are now also a limited number of studies that have investigated molecular genetic candidate gene-environment interactions (G × E), however, so far, thorough replication of findings is rare and G × E research still faces several conceptual and methodological challenges. In this article, we aim to review these recent developments and illustrate how integrated, large-scale investigations may overcome contemporary challenges in G × E research, drawing on the example of a large, international, multi-center study into the identification and translational application of G × E in schizophrenia.

[Genetics as a relevant factor for the purpose of judging criminal imputability. Status of the issue and critical perspective. Considering particularly the Decision of the Trieste Court of Appeals (Italy) of September 18, 2009].

The present contribution analyses the relevance of the genetic predispositions in the field of Criminal Law. Its principal effect is basically associated with the sphere of the Insanity Defense, due to the fact that a number of psychiatric alterations or abnormalities relevant for the Insanity Defense show a genetic basis. This statement has been recently confirmed by new scientific evidences and in the judicial framework by the Sentence of the Court of Appeal of Trieste (Italy) from 18th September 2009 which accepts the genetic characteristics of the defendant as a relevant data in order to cut the sentence given to a person convicted of murder.