Pre-Pandemic Predictivity of Anxious-Depressive Symptoms in Post-Surgical Traumatic Distress in Hysterectomy for Benign Disease and COVID-19 Outbreak: A Case-Control Study.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic led to several needed containment measures that conditioned the onset of depressive, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in the population. These symptoms, especially if not diagnosed and treated, can also occur in patients undergoing medical care or surgery, with a high impact on people's lives and causing low adherence to treatment. The study evaluates whether the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worsened the onset of post-surgical distress and symptoms of anxiety and depression in a population undergoing hysterectomy for benign disease during the pandemic era, comparing it with a population with the same characteristics but recruited before COVID-19.

The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Mental Health Services: A Comparison Between First Psychiatric Consultations Before and After the Pandemic.

Objective: A high rate of onset or exacerbation of several mental disorders has been observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the risk contributing to mental distress during the pandemic remains unclear. The study aims to evaluate the risk of the onset of mental disorders by comparing the number of requests for the first psychiatric consultation before and after the COVID-19 pandemic at the psychiatric outpatient services of Varese, a small town in Northern Italy.

The North Italian innovative project for common psychiatric disorders: Evaluating the output of a treatment model of an outpatient clinic for anxiety and depression.

Depressive disorders were considered the first causes of disability worldwide as early as 2018. The outpatient clinic for anxiety and depression at the University Hospital of Varese represents a service that fully responds to the growing number of requests. Approximately 1,350 medical records have been opened from 2010 to December 2021.

Efficacy of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) in depressive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Depression is one of the leading diseases globally. It can severely interfere with daily and occupational functioning of people affected. Both pharmacological interventions and psychotherapy are used for adult depression.

Pharmacological Interventions Combined Treatment of Depression: A Prospective Study.

Introduction: Depression is a common disease worldwide but still, the role of combined treatment (pharmacological and psychological interventions) needs to be clarified. The study aims to compare the effectiveness of integrated treatment versus exclusive pharmacological intervention of depression.

Materials And Methods: The observational prospective study provided the collection of data relating to outpatients evaluated through the administration of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS), and the Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI) both at T0 and at a 3-month follow up visit (T1).

Inflammatory Biomarker and Response to Antidepressant in Major Depressive Disorder: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Inadequate response to antidepressant treatment, in a significant proportion of patients diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, contributes to the large burden of disability associated with the disease; thus, predicting treatment response is one of the most important challenge for clinicians who deal with depressed patients. The cytokine hypothesis of depression suggests that altered pheripheral cytokine levels are involved in the pathophysiology of depressive disorder and in modulating response to treatment. Present meta-analysis aimed to investigate the association between cytokine levels at baseline and response to antidepressant therapies.

Efficacy and tolerability of therapies set under pharmacogenetic tools suggestions: A systematic review with meta-analysis about mood disorders.

Background: Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have a huge impact on functioning and quality of life; moreover, they are linked to extensive direct and indirect costs. This systematic review with meta-analysis aims to evaluate the utility of pharmacogenetic tests (PGT) in terms of efficacy and tolerability into the routine clinical treatment of mood disorders.

Materials And Methods: The first part of the review is a qualitative overview of the PGTs used in the included studies.

Resilience, Cardiological Outcome, and Their Correlations With Anxious-Depressive Symptoms and Quality of Life in Patients With an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator.

Resilience is proven as a protective factor against the development of psychiatric disorders, and it has gained clinical relevance in the development and progression of cardiovascular pathology. The authors performed a longitudinal study on patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) with the primary aim to highlight the possible existence of a correlation between individual resilience capacity, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and quality of life in terms of outcomes. The secondary aim was to analyze the differences between patients with major cardiac events in the follow-up and patients without cardiac events with respect to the previous variables.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Nutraceutical Combination in Major Depression Disorder: A Case-Control Study.

Introduction: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a primary cause of disability in adults, affecting daily functioning and decreasing quality of life. The focus on the role of nutraceuticals as adjunctive treatments to improve antidepressant response is paying growing interest. The study aims to compare the antidepressants response in the utilization of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) versus a combination of SSRIs and nutraceutical supplements based on S-Adenosyl methionine (SAMe), N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and folate in terms of efficacy and tolerability.

Long Acting Injectables and their Correlation with Subjectivity in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder.

Nowadays, mental illness can no longer be considered as a mere list of symptoms corresponding to localized brain dysfunctions but rather as a disturbance of the patient's subjectivity. Thus, a solid, qualitative study of patients' subjectivity could represent a useful tool in the complex evaluation of efficacy of pharmacotherapy in schizophrenic persons. In this perspective, authors performed a phenomenological oriented investigation on 49 patients, diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, who were receiving long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotic therapy.

[Pharmacogenetic testing in acute and chronic pain: a preliminary study].

Background. Pain is one of the most common symptoms that weighs on life's quality and health expenditure. In a reality in which increasingly personalized therapies are needed, the early use of genetic tests that highlight the individual response to analgesic drugs could be a valuable help in clinical practice helping to reduce response times, to achieve a good level of analgesia and to reduce the risk of side effects and adverse events.

A bio-psycho-social approach in elderly population: outcome of adapted physical activity in patients with osteoarthritis.

Background: The beneficial effect of physical activity on a large spectrum of diseases is well known, with particular importance for elderly people. Among the different types of activity, adapted physical activity (APA) has been applied in a number of disease-related physical deficit.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the outcome of a six months APA program in elder patients with osteoarthritis concerning physical and functional health and as second endpoint to determine the potential effect of AFA on reducing the risk of institutionalization.

Hospitalized Patients with Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms: Clinical Context and Economic Costs of Healthcare Management.

Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms (MUPS) are physical symptoms without a medical explanation. This study collected data from hospitalized patients presenting MUPS, aiming to draw a clinical and socio-demographic profile of patients with MUPS, to explore psychopathological correlations of Somatic Symptoms Disorder (SSD) diagnosis, and to estimate economic costs related to hospital management for MUPS. The cross-sectional study consisted in the evaluation of data referring to hospitalized patients admitted between 2008 and 2018 in a teaching hospital in Northern Italy.

Oral Antipsychotic Versus Long-Acting Injections Antipsychotic in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder: a Mirror Analysis in a Real-World Clinical Setting.

Despite mixed results found in literature, long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) should offer better efficacy and tolerability, compared to oral antipsychotics due to improved adherence and more stable pharmacokinetics. From this perspective, authors evaluated 153 patients, diagnosed with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder and residing in the province of Varese (Italy), in order to compare oral antipsychotics' and LAIs' efficacy in terms of accesses to emergency room, number and length of hospitalizations. Data analysis showed a substantial reduction in all considered variables after the introduction of long-acting therapy, especially for those who received LAI treatment from disease's onset.

Resilience and recovery style: a retrospective study on associations among personal resources, symptoms, neurocognition, quality of life and psychosocial functioning in psychotic patients.

Personal resources have been identified as important factors in predicting patient healing or symptoms control in schizophrenia. This observational retrospective study aims to explore the influence of resilience and recovery style on the modalities of clinical presentation of the disease, as well as individual functioning and quality of life. Participants were patients affected by schizophrenia spectrum disorders assessed at different mental health facilities.

The 6-D Model of National Culture as a Tool to Examine Cultural Interpretation of Migration Trauma-Related Dissociative Disorder: A Case Series.

Dissociative experiences are common in traumatized individuals who can use dissociation as a psychological escape from emotional and physical distress associated with overwhelming traumatic events. Traumatic experiences and the cultural interpretation of trauma-related symptoms often serve to explain the wide range of dissociative phenomenology; in fact, dissociation is a complex and ubiquitous construct present in a variety of mental disorders. The Six-Dimensions Model of National Culture has been used as a tool to compare patients' different cultural background that could have accounted for the different clinical manifestations.

Twenty years of Lithium pharmacogenetics: A systematic review.

Lithium is among the best proven treatments for patients diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, however response to Lithium appears to be considerably variable among individuals and it has been suggested that this inconstancy in Lithium response could be genetically determined. Starting from this perspective, in the last few decades, a number of pharmacogenetic studies have attempted to identify genetic variants, which might be associated with response to Lithium in bipolar patients, in order to develop a pharmacogenetics test to tailor treatment on patients, identifying who will benefit the most from therapy with Lithium. Within this context, authors have critically reviewed pharmacogenetic studies of Lithium response in bipolar disorder, suggesting strategies for future work in this field.

Pharmacogenetic Testing in Acute and Chronic Pain: A Preliminary Study.

Pain is one of the most common symptoms that weighs on life's quality and health expenditure. In a reality where increasingly personalized therapies are needed, the early use of genetic tests that highlights the individual response to analgesic drugs could be a valuable help in clinical practice. The aim of this preliminary study is to observe if the therapy set to 5 patients suffering of chronic or acute pain is concordant to the Pharmacogenetic test (PGT) results.

Pharmacogenetic Tests in Reducing Accesses to Emergency Services and Days of Hospitalization in Bipolar Disorder: A 2-Year Mirror Analysis.

Despite the enormous costs associated to mood disorders', few studies evaluate potential cost saving from the use of pharmacogenetic tests (PGT). This study compares 12 months before the execution of the PGT versus 12 months after, in terms of number and days of hospitalization and accesses to emergency services, in a sample of 30 patients affected by bipolar disorder. Secondarily, the study gives an economic value to the data based on the diagnosis-related group (DRG).

Paroxetine Vortioxetine for Depressive Symptoms in Postmenopausal Transition: A Preliminary Study.

Background: The impact of menopause is a consequence of social, physical and mental changes; hormonal changes play an important role in inducing an increased risk of developing depressive symptoms. It is essential to treat mood and vasomotor symptoms and to prevent their onset to promote an improvement in the quality of life, both in terms of clinical and psychological conditions.

Objective: This observational study aims to compare paroxetine and vortioxetine in a sample of patients affected by postmenopausal depression attending the Anxiety and Depression Clinic in terms of: efficacy in determining clinical remission (HDRS ≤ 7) and tolerability; improvement of autonomic and cognitive symptoms.

Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms in Hospitalized Patients: A 9-Year Retrospective Observational Study.

"Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms" (MUPS) defines a subgroup of patients presenting physical symptoms of unclear origin. The study aims to profile clinical and socio-demographic characteristics of patients with MUPS. This 9-years observational retrospective study assesses all patients admitted between 2008 and 2016 in the divisions of neurology and gastroenterology.

Efficacy and Tolerability of Two Different Kinds of Titration of Paroxetine Hydrocloride Solution: an Observational Study.

Background: Depressive disorders are expected to be the second highest cause of morbidity in the world until few years. Moreover, patients with depression frequently show many side effects and low compliance to therapy. To find a more tolerated and more efficacy therapy is a growing need.