Causes of Death in an Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Unit of a Portuguese General Hospital.

Introduction: Psychiatric patients are at increased risk of death from a number of natural and unnatural causes. This study examines the mortality causes of all psychiatric inpatients of an acute psychiatric unit at a general hospital in Portugal for sixteen years (1998 to 2013).

Material And Methods: Twenty-one inpatients died at the inpatient unit between 1998 and 2013 (average 1.

Efficacy of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Bipolar Disorder with Mixed Features.

Introduction. Mixed states represent a frequent presentation of bipolar disorder, associated with higher resistance to psychopharmacology. Limited evidence supports the use of ECT in these patients.

Depression and anxiety symptoms following cancer diagnosis: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: The aims of the present study were to assess demographic and clinical characteristics of patients after receiving a cancer diagnosis, and to determine possible risk factors for anxiety and depression.

Methods: All consecutive patients aged 18 or above, were assessed before starting intravenous chemotherapy for the first time with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Distress Thermometer, and a Visual Analog Scale for pain. Demographic and clinical data were also collected.

Empathy as related to motivations for medicine in a sample of first-year medical students.

Professionalism and empathy are crucial in clinical settings. An association would be expected between empathic attitudes and altruistic motivations for a medical education. However, data is scarce in first-year students, and a previous small-scale study did not fully confirm the hypothesis that person-oriented motives would have a strong relationship to empathy.

Characteristics of frequent users of an acute psychiatric inpatient unit: a five-year study in Portugal.

Objective: This study examined demographic and clinical characteristics of frequent users of a psychiatric inpatient unit in Portugal.

Methods: Data (2004-2008) for 1,348 consecutive psychiatric inpatients were reviewed. Frequent users (N=137), who had at least three admissions in the study period, were compared with nonfrequent users (N=1,211) on age, gender, race-ethnicity, diagnosis, and compulsory admissions.

An OCD patient presenting with a cerebellum venous variant in a family with a strong schizophrenia loading: a case report.

The role of cerebellar pathology in psychiatric symptoms has long been recognized. Cerebellar pathology has been associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder pathophysiology, particularly with compulsive hoarding. Likewise, some cerebellum abnormalities have been described in schizophrenia, as well as in comorbidity between obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.

[Training in forensic psychiatry: comparative issues towards a rethinking of the Portuguese model].

Background And Aims: Forensic psychiatry has experienced a significant development in the last few decades. Several mechanisms underlie this shift, including deinstitutionalization of mental health patients and extraordinary progress in neurosciences, imaging technologies and psychology, just no name a few. This development has put in evidence specific needs for training and education.

[Empathy in the doctor-patient relationship as viewed by first-year medical students: data on validity and sensibility to change of the Jefferson Measure in Portugal].

Background And Aims: Empathy is a key feature of the doctor-patient relationship. Several studies have shown a link between empathic relationships and clinical outcomes. However, reports of a decline in empathy over the course of undergraduate medical education and medical practice have raised concern among medical educators.

[Depression in cancer patients: diagnostic and therapeutic considerations].

Background And Aims: Oncologic diseases currently have a high prevalence and present as one of the leading causes of death in the western world. Clinical depression and emotional distress are often the outcome of the threat these diseases present to individual existence. Although its precise determination is hampered by methodological problems, up to 50% of cancer patients may become clinically depressed and experience intense personal distress.

[Portuguese translation of Alistair Munro's criteria for paraphrenia].

The current concept of paraphrenia has its historical origins in Emil Kraepelin's work. Several factors, however, contributed to the fading out of this disorder, namely the follow-up study of W. Mayer, the influences of Bleuler and of some related concepts, such as Roth's late paraphrenia.

48,XXYY in a General Adult Psychiatry Department.

The 48,XXYY syndrome is a distinct clinical and genetic entity, with an incidence of 1:17,000 to 1:50,000 newborns. Patients often access mental healthcare services due to behavior problems, such as aggressiveness and impulsiveness, and are frequently intellectually disabled. We report a case of a patient with 48,XXYY syndrome treated in a general adult psychiatry department.

[The use of opium in Roman society and the dependence of Princeps Marcus Aurelius].

Opium was known and frequently used in Roman society. Medical practice recognized its usefulness as an analgesic, soporific, anti-tussic or anti-diarrheic agent, as well as other currently unsupported uses with quasi-magical properties. It was additionally used as an ingredient in antidotes, panaceas and poisons.

Heart failure and depression: an association with clinical importance.

Major depression is found in one fifth of heart failure patients, and clinically significant depressive symptoms in almost half. The association of depression and heart failure appears to be related both to the psychological aspects of severe heart disease, and to pathophysiological and psychosocial mechanisms. The presence of depression is associated with a worsening of the prognosis, and increased risk of death, rehospitalization, and functional decline.

[Ethics, knowledge and psychiatry: in Aulus Cornelius Celsus' De Medicina].

Modern medicine has many roots on greco-roman practice of the medical art. The authors analyse the work De Medicina by Aulus Cornelius Celsus. They look upon the nature of the medical knowledge, the principles of ethics, causality and describe the mental disorders (phrenitis, depression, third insanity, seizure disorder and womb disease), with special detail to signs and symptoms, treatment and prognosis.