Publications by authors named "Ditte L Vernal"

Pathogenic variants in the IRF2BPL gene are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders with varying degrees of regression, loss of speech and epilepsy. The phenotype is also known as Neurodevelopmental Disorder with regression, Abnormal Movements, loss of Speech, and Seizures (NEDAMSS). The motor symptoms of this disorder share significant phenotypical characteristics with catatonia, a severe neuropsychiatric psychomotor syndrome.

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  • * The study will involve a search of various databases for key terms related to personal recovery and psychosocial interventions, with data screened and extracted by two reviewers.
  • * Findings will be documented, presented in tables, and discussed; research gaps will be identified, and results will be shared through conferences and peer-reviewed publications.
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Background: Exercise is recommended to protect physical health among people with severe mental illness and holds the potential to facilitate long-term recovery. An inclusive exercise community provides an opportunity for life skill training and social connectedness and may reduce the experience of loneliness and internalized stigmatization which together may improve personal recovery. Using a pragmatic randomized design, we aim to examine the effectiveness of a gym-based exercise intervention tailored to young adults in antipsychotic treatment (i.

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  • The study aimed to compare the effects of tapering off antipsychotic medication versus continuing it in patients with first-episode schizophrenia who were in remission from psychotic symptoms.
  • Due to difficulties in recruitment, only 29 participants were included, revealing poor adherence to maintenance treatment, with a slight advantage in symptom remission for those who tapered off medication.
  • The trial was ultimately inconclusive because of recruitment issues, highlighting the need for better study designs to understand the impact of maintaining versus discontinuing antipsychotic treatment in this patient population.
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Although attenuated psychotic symptoms often occur for the first time during adolescence, studies focusing on adolescents are scarce. Attenuated psychotic symptoms form the criteria to identify individuals at increased clinical risk of developing psychosis. The study of individuals with these symptoms has led to the release of the DSM-5 diagnosis of Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome (APS) as a condition for further research.

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Objective: Early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) may have worse outcomes than adult-onset schizophrenia (AOS), but data are scarce. We compared outcomes of EOS vs. AOS.

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Bipolar disorder (BD) is a debilitating illness that often starts at an early age. Prevention of first and subsequent mood episodes, which are usually preceded by a period characterized by subthreshold symptoms is important. We compared demographic and clinical characteristics including severity and duration of subsyndromal symptoms across adolescents with three different bipolar-spectrum disorders.

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Objective: There is no standard method for assessing symptoms of the prodrome to bipolar disorder (BD), which has limited progress toward early identification and intervention. We aimed to validate the Bipolar Prodrome Symptom Scale-Abbreviated Screen for Patients (BPSS-AS-P), a brief self-report derived from the validated, clinician-rated Bipolar Prodrome Symptom Interview and Scale-Full Prospective (BPSS-FP), as a means to screen and identify people for whom further evaluation is indicated.

Method: Altogether, 134 participants (aged 12-18 years) were drawn from a study of the pre-syndromal stage of mood and psychotic disorders.

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The objective of this study is to assess (1) the concordance and validity of schizophrenia register diagnoses among children and adolescents (early onset schizophrenia = EOS) in the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register (DPCRR), and (2) the validity of clinical record schizophrenia diagnoses. Psychiatric records from 200 patients with a first-time diagnosis of schizophrenia (F20.x) at age < 18 years between 1994 and 2009 in the DPCRR were rated by experienced clinicians according to ICD-10 criteria, using a predefined checklist.

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While attenuated psychotic symptoms (APS) and basic symptoms (BS) are the main current predictors of psychosis in adults, studies in adolescents are scarce. Thus, we (1) described the prevalence and severity of positive, negative, disorganization, general, and basic symptoms in adolescent patients at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR), with other non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (PC) and with early-onset psychosis (EOP); and (2) investigated BS criteria in relation to UHR criteria. Sixty-nine 12-18-year-old adolescents (15.

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Objectives: DSM-5 conceptualized attenuated psychosis syndrome (APS) as self-contained rather than as a risk syndrome, including it under "Conditions for Further Study," but also as a codable/billable condition in the main section. Since many major mental disorders emerge during adolescence, we assessed the frequency and characteristics of APS in adolescent psychiatric inpatients.

Methods: Consecutively recruited adolescents hospitalized for nonpsychotic disorders (September 2009-May 2013) were divided into APS youth versus non-APS youth, based on the Structured Interview of Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS) and according to DSM-5 criteria, and compared across multiple characteristics.

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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess differences in the outcomes of youth with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SCZ-S) and psychotic disorder not otherwise specified (PsyNOS) during early antipsychotic treatment.

Methods: The study was a prospective, naturalistic, inception cohort study of youth ≤19 years old with SCZ-S (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder) or PsyNOS (PsyNOS, brief psychotic disorder) and ≤24 months of lifetime antipsychotic treatment receiving clinician's choice antipsychotic treatment. Baseline demographic, illness and treatment variables, and effectiveness outcomes were compared at 12 weeks last-observation-carried-forward across SCZ-S and PsyNOS patients, adjusting for significantly different baseline variables.

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Objective: Antipsychotics are associated with weight gain and diabetes. The risk and rate of diabetes in children and adolescents treated with antipsychotics is unclear.

Method: A longitudinal register linkage case-control study of diabetes in all psychiatric patients aged <18 years in Denmark was performed from January 1999 through the end of June 2010.

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Background: The evidence for choices between antipsychotics for children and adolescents with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders is limited. The main objective of the Tolerability and Efficacy of Antipsychotics (TEA) trial is to compare the benefits and harms of quetiapine versus aripiprazole in children and adolescents with psychosis in order to inform rational, effective and safe treatment selections.

Methods/design: The TEA trial is a Danish investigator-initiated, independently funded, multi-centre, randomised, blinded clinical trial.

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Background: The current review analyzes the long-term outcome and prognosis of early onset schizophrenia based on previously published studies in 1980.

Methods: A systematic search of articles published in the English-language literature after 1980 identified a total of 21 studies, which included 716 patients who were either suffering from early onset schizophrenia (EOS) or both EOS and other psychotic disorders (MIX). The authors of the current review scored the outcome as either "good," "moderate," or "poor.

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