Active Ingredients and Mechanisms of Change in Motivational Interviewing for Medication Adherence. A Mixed Methods Study of Patient-Therapist Interaction in Patients With Schizophrenia.

Background: Trials studying Motivational Interviewing (MI) to improve medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia showed mixed results. Moreover, it is unknown which active MI-ingredients are associated with mechanisms of change in patients with schizophrenia. To enhance the effect of MI for patients with schizophrenia, we studied MI's active ingredients and its working mechanisms.

Medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia: a qualitative study of the patient process in motivational interviewing.

Background: Motivational interviewing (MI) may be an effective intervention to improve medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia. However, for this patient group, mixed results have been found in randomized controlled trials. Furthermore, the process of becoming (more) motivated for long-term medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia is largely unexplored.

Nursing Staff Factors Contributing to Seclusion in Acute Mental Health Care - An Explorative Cohort Study.

Background: Seclusion is a controversial intervention. Efficacy with regard to aggressive behaviour has not been demonstrated, and seclusion is only justified for preventing safety hazards. Previous studies indicate that nursing staff factors may be predictors for seclusion, although methodological issues may have led to equivocal results.

Specificity of facial emotion recognition impairments in patients with multi-episode schizophrenia.

Background: Patients with schizophrenia show impairments in social information processing, such as recognising facial emotions and face identity.

Goal: The aim of this study was to explore whether these impairments represent specific deficits or are part of a more general cognitive dysfunction.

Method: Forty-two patients with schizophrenia and 42 matched controls were compared on facial emotion and face identity recognition versus (non-social) abstract pattern recognition, using three tasks of the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT) program.

Processing of facial and nonsocial information is differentially associated with severity of symptoms in patients with multiepisode schizophrenia.

Patients with schizophrenia show impairments in social cognitive abilities, such as recognizing facial emotions. However, the relation to symptoms remains unclear. The goal of this study was to explore whether facial emotion recognition and face identity recognition are associated with severity of symptoms and to which extent associations with symptoms differ for processing of social versus nonsocial information.

Selecting an optimal instrument to identify active ingredients of the motivational interviewing-process.

Objective: Motivational Interviewing (MI) can effectively stimulate motivation for health behavior change, but the active ingredients of MI are not well known. To help clinicians further stimulate motivation, they need to know the active ingredients of MI. A psychometrically sound instrument is required to identify those ingredients.

The effect of motivational interviewing on medication adherence and hospitalization rates in nonadherent patients with multi-episode schizophrenia.

Background: Medication nonadherence in patients with schizophrenia presents a serious clinical problem. Research on interventions incorporating motivational interviewing (MI) to improve adherence have shown mixed results.

Aims: Primary aim is to determine the effectiveness of a MI intervention on adherence and hospitalization rates in patients, with multi-episode schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, who have experienced a psychotic relapse following medication nonadherence.

The Amsterdam Studies of Acute Psychiatry - II (ASAP-II): a comparative study of psychiatric intensive care units in the Netherlands.

Background: The number of patients in whom mental illness progresses to stages in which acute, and often forced treatment is warranted, is on the increase across Europe. As a consequence, more patients are involuntarily admitted to Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). From several studies and reports it has become evident that important dissimilarities exist between PICU's.