The impact of side-effects of antipsychotic agents on life satisfaction of schizophrenia patients: a naturalistic study.

This study compared the impact of side-effects of antipsychotic treatment, clinical and psychosocial factors on the subjective quality of life (QOL) of hospitalized patients. We surveyed 161 patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia stabilized on conventional and atypical antipsychotic drugs using standardized measures of adverse events, psychopathology, psychosocial variables, and perceived QOL. We found that patients with adverse events reported less satisfaction with life domains of subjective feelings and general activities than asymptomatic patients.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder in hospitalized patients with chronic schizophrenia.

Obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms have been observed in a substantial proportion of schizophrenic patients. In this study, we assessed the rate of occurrence of OC symptoms and the interrelationship between OC and schizophrenic symptoms in 68 hospitalized chronic schizophrenic patients. The patients were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for Axis-I DSM-IV Disorders - Patient Edition (SCID-P) and the appropriate rating scales including the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), the Barnes Akathisia Scale, the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale, and the Social Behaviour Schedule (SBS).

Paroxetine binding in aggressive schizophrenic patients.

Decreased central serotonergic activity has been associated with aggressive behavior in humans and animals. Whether or not this phenomenon is related to current aggression or to aggressive tendency is debatable. [3H]paroxetine binding in blood platelets represents the activity of serotonin peripheral binding sites.

Association of unipolar major depressive disorder with genes of the serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a severe psychiatric disorder with a lifetime prevalence of about 15%.1 The importance of the genetic component is well accepted,2 but the mode of inheritance is complex and non-Mendelian. A line of evidence suggests the involvement of serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters in the pathophysiology of depression.