Intervention for reducing the overuse of upper endoscopy in patients <45 years: a protocol for a stepwise intervention programme.

Utilisation rates for healthcare services vary widely both within and between nations. Moreover, healthcare providers with insurance-based reimbursement systems observe an effect of social determinants of health on healthcare utilisation rates and outcomes. Even in countries with publicly funded universal healthcare such as Norway, utilisation rates for medical and surgical interventions vary between and within health regions and hospitals.

Reducing unwarranted variation: can a 'clinical dashboard' be helpful for hospital executive boards and top-level leaders?

Background/aim: In the past decades, there has been an increasing focus on defining, identifying and reducing unwarranted variation in clinical practice. There have been several attempts to monitor and reduce unwarranted variation, but the experience so far is that these initiatives have failed to reach their goals. In this article, we present the initial process of developing a safety, quality and utilisation rate dashboard ('clinical dashboard') based on a selection of data routinely reported to executive boards and top-level leaders in Norwegian specialist healthcare.

Geographic variation in the utilisation of specialist healthcare for patients with severe mental illness in Norway: a population-based registry study.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to measure geographic variations in mental healthcare service utilisation among patients with severe mental illness in Norway.

Method: We analysed data from the Norwegian patient registry for 2014-2018 for patients with severe mental illness. The outcomes measured in this study were: outpatient contact, admission, bed days and total contact rates.

Patient satisfaction and acute psychiatric inpatient treatment.

Patient satisfaction (PS) with treatment is one of different outcome- and quality measures used by health care providers worldwide to improve service. We report from a study of patients admitted to the Department of Acute Psychiatry at the Oslo University Hospital where we investigated PS and difference between genders, days of hospital stay, diagnostic groups, voluntary-and involuntary admitted patients according to hospital records and perceived voluntary-and involuntary admittance. All admitted patients during a 9-month period in 2014 were asked to participate by written consent.

Reduced load-dependent default mode network deactivation across executive tasks in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Background: Schizophrenia is associated with cognitive impairment and brain network dysconnectivity. Recent efforts have explored brain circuits underlying cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and documented altered activation of large-scale brain networks, including the task-positive network (TPN) and the task-negative default mode network (DMN) in response to cognitive demands. However, to what extent TPN and DMN dysfunction reflect overlapping mechanisms and are dependent on cognitive state remain to be determined.

Frontotemporal hypoactivity during a reality monitoring paradigm is associated with delusions in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Introduction: Impaired monitoring of internally generated information has been proposed to be one component in the development and maintenance of delusions. The present study investigated the neural correlates underlying the monitoring processes and whether they were associated with delusions.

Methods: Twenty healthy controls and 19 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were administrated a reality monitoring paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

CACNA1C risk variant and amygdala activity in bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and healthy controls.

Objectives: Several genetic studies have implicated the CACNA1C SNP rs1006737 in bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ) pathology. This polymorphism was recently found associated with increased amygdala activity in healthy controls and patients with BD. We performed a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study in a sample of BD and SZ cases and healthy controls to test for altered amygdala activity in carriers of the rs1006737 risk allele (AA/AG), and to investigate if there were differences across the diagnostic groups.

Arousal Modulates Activity in the Medial Temporal Lobe during a Short-Term Relational Memory Task.

This study investigated the effect of arousal on short-term relational memory and its underlying cortical network. Seventeen healthy participants performed a picture by location, short-term relational memory task using emotional pictures. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the blood-oxygenation-level dependent signal relative to task.

Severe social anxiety in early psychosis is associated with poor premorbid functioning, depression, and reduced quality of life.

Objective: The main aim of the present study was to examine whether patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) with severe social anxiety show poorer premorbid and current functioning, higher level of current clinical symptoms, and better "insight into illness." Furthermore, we wanted to explore whether social anxiety is associated with reduced quality of life (QoL).

Method: A sample of 144 individuals with an FEP was divided into 3 groups depending on current level of social anxiety symptoms measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale.

Children's eyewitness memory: a comparison of two interviewing strategies as realized by forensic professionals.

A critical issue for developmental psychology is how to obtain accurate and complete eyewitness memory reports from preschoolers without offering suggestions that might result in false allegations. We examined effects of two interviewing strategies (police/verbal interviews and clinician/prop-assisted interviews) on young children's reports about a medical examination. A total of 58 4-year-olds participated in the study, which conformed to a 2 (Interview Type)x2 (Number of Interviews) factorial design.