Evaluation of dangerousness of Greek mental patients.

There is a diachronic interest on the evaluation of the risk of violence by mental patients.Difficulties that have been underlined concern the definition of the term dangerousness and the different methods of approaching it. Accurate risk assessments are particularly important for psychiatric patients, with history of violence, in indoor care.

[From conduct disorder in childhood to psychopathy in adult life].

Mental health professionals seldom recognize psychopathy in their daily practice. Usually forensic psychiatrists and psychologists are involved because individuals with psychopathic personality are involved in serious criminal behavior and implicated with the law. Most of the times the profiles of children who evolve in adult psychopaths have components from other disorders, especially conduct disorder.

[Self-assessment questionnaires for the investigation of bipolarity].

Contemporary research shows that bipolar disorders are very often faced initially as depression, while the precise diagnosis usually delay 8-10 years or more. As a result of this delay in the diagnosis, the patients do not receive appropriate treatment and are not led to recession of their symptoms. Roughly one third of depressed patients are treated at mental health services and two thirds at the primary care health services.

[Change of atmosphere in patients' family after attending rehabilitation programs].

Contemporary research had confirmed the opinion that an unstable familial environment, with expressed negative affects of healthy members, contributes to negative prognosis of patients. Rehabilitation Programs can contribute to reverse this negative atmosphere in families of mentally ill patients. In own research have participated 48 patients and their carers from different settings in the Athens area.

Smoking in patients with psychiatric disorders: Effects on their psychopathology and quality of life.

We are living in an era of implementing complete smoking cessation in all closed areas, following the example of the USA and other countries in the European Union. We appear more tolerant in our mentally ill in-patients, especially the ones suffering from long-term schizophrenia, where smoking is accepted and even encouraged. We tried to investigate the effect of smoking in these patients.