Brexpiprazole Augmentation in Treatment Resistant OCD: Safety and Efficacy in an Italian Sample.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common and debilitating psychiatric disorder with an approximate incidence of 2.5% in the general population. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) are considered the first line of pharmacological treatment but up to 50% of patients fail to achieve clinical remission or response.

Metabolic Management Model in Psychiatric Outpatients: a Real-World Experience.

Obesity and weight gain represent a challenging issue in people suffering from schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses (SMI). Most of clinical guidelines for the management of overweight and obesity in people with SMI share a stepwise approach starting with more conservative interventions, with diet, physical activity, lifestyle coaching and behavioral modifications. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a group weight management program in a real-world outpatient Italian setting.

Clarifying the prevalence of OCD: A response to reader comments.

This response to a reader's comment on our paper "The Global Assessment of OCD" addresses the critique regarding the stated prevalence of OCD as the fourth most common mental disorder. We acknowledge an oversight in our initial reference, discuss the variable prevalence rates from various studies, and highlight the significant disability caused by OCD. We have requested a correction to the original citation to reflect more recent findings, aiming to ensure accuracy in the discourse on OCD's public health impact.

Cariprazine Augmentation in Treatment-Resistant Bipolar Depression: Data from a Retrospective Observational Study.

Background: Treatment-resistant bipolar depression is one of the leading problems in psychiatry with serious consequences on patients functioning, quality of life and resource utilization. Despite this, there is a lack of consensus on diagnostic criteria and treatment algorithms.

Objective: The objective of the present study is to assess the acute effectiveness and tolerability of cariprazine in the management of treatment resistant bipolar depression.

Cariprazine augmentation in patients with treatment resistant unipolar depression who failed to respond to previous atypical antipsychotic add-on. A case-series.

Among individuals receiving an adequate pharmacological treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), only 30% reach a full symptom recovery; the remaining 70% will experience either a pharmacological response without remission or no response at all thus configuring treatment resistant depression (TRD). After an inadequate response to an antidepressant, possible next step options include optimizing the dose of the current antidepressant, switching to a different antidepressant, combining antidepressants, or augmenting with a non-antidepressant medication. Augmentation strategies with the most evidence-based support include atypical antipsychotics (AAs).

Metacognition in schizophrenia: A practical overview of psychometric metacognition assessment tools for researchers and clinicians.

Metacognition refers to the cognitive ability to control, monitor and modulate cognitive processes thus guiding and orienting behavior: a continuum of mental activities that ranges from more discrete ones, such as the awareness of the accuracy of others' judgment, to more integrated activities, such as the knowledge of cognitive processes. Metacognition impairment in schizophrenia, which is considered a core feature of the illness, has become a growing research field focusing on a wide range of processes including reasoning, autobiographical memory, memory biases, cognitive beliefs and clinical insight. There is a well-established relationship between metacognition and schizophrenia symptoms severity, as well as between impaired metacognitive functioning and specific symptomatic sub-domains, such as positive symptoms, negative symptoms, or disorganization.

The global assessment of OCD.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common mental disorder that often causes great sufferance, with substantial impairment in social functioning and quality of life and affects family and significant relationships. Notwithstanding its severity, OCD is often not adequately diagnosed, or it is diagnosed with delay, leading often to a long latency between onset of the OCD symptoms and the start of adequate treatments. Several factors contribute to the complexity of OCD's clinical picture: early age of onset, chronic course, heterogeneity of symptoms, high rate of comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders, slow or partial response to therapy.

Aripiprazole Augmentation to Mood Stabilizers for Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Bipolar Disorder.

: Aripiprazole is a first-line agent in the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD) and available data demonstrates its efficacy on clinical symptoms in serotonin reuptake inhibitors-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients. Therefore, aripiprazole augmentation to mood stabilizers could represent a promising treatment in BD patients with comorbid OCD. The study examined the efficacy and safety of aripiprazole added to lithium or valproate for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms in euthymic BD patients with comorbid OCD.

Paliperidone Palmitate and Metabolic Syndrome in Patients With Schizophrenia: A 12-Month Observational Prospective Cohort Study.

Oral and long-acting injectable second-generation antipsychotics are known to be associated with a high risk of metabolic adverse effects. Together with other drug treatments, poor lifestyle choices, and genetic liability, they contribute to development of metabolic syndrome (MetS), which occurs in nearly one third of patients with schizophrenia.The primary objective of this multicenter prospective observational study was to explore the prevalence of MetS in a sample of 60 real-world patients treated with paliperidone palmitate (PP) over a period of 12 months.

Aripiprazole augmentation of serotonin reuptake inhibitors in treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder: a 12-week open-label preliminary study.

One of the most studied and well-documented strategies for treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the addition of antipsychotic drugs to the ongoing serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) treatment. To date, there has been a paucity of data regarding the use of aripiprazole in OCD patients who failed to respond to SRIs. The aim of the present pilot study was to investigate the efficacy of flexible doses of aripiprazole as augmenting agent in the treatment of resistant OCD patients.

8-week, single-blind, randomized trial comparing risperidone versus olanzapine augmentation of serotonin reuptake inhibitors in treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The aim of the present pilot study was to investigate in a single-blind manner, over a period of 8 weeks, the comparative efficacy and tolerability of risperidone versus olanzapine addition in the treatment of OCD patients who did not show a >or=35% decrease in the YBOCS score after 16-week SRI treatment (defined as resistant). The study consisted of two different phases: a 16-week open-label prospective phase to ascertain resistance to SRI treatment and an 8-week single-blind addition phase for resistant subjects only. Ninety-six subjects with DSM-IV OCD (YBOCS>or=16) entered the open-label prospective phase; at the end of the 16-week period, 50 (52%) were judged to be resistant and were randomized to receive risperidone (1 to 3 mg/d) or olanzapine (2.

Early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder and personality disorders in adulthood.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often emerges in childhood or adolescence. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether adult patients with prepuberal onset differ from subjects with later onset in terms of personality disorder comorbidity. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders was used to assess 148 patients with a principal diagnosis of OCD according to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders.

Bipolar obsessive-compulsive disorder and personality disorders.

Objectives: Relatively few systematic data exist on the clinical impact of bipolar comorbidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and no studies have investigated the influence of such a comorbidity on the prevalence and pattern of Axis II comorbidity. The aim of the present study was to explore the comorbidity of personality disorders in a group of patients with OCD and comorbid bipolar disorder (BD).

Methods: The sample consisted of 204 subjects with a principal diagnosis of OCD (DSM-IV) and a Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) score>or=16 recruited from all patients consecutively referred to the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Unit, Department of Neuroscience, University of Turin over a period of 5 years (January 1998-December 2002).