Is medical perspective on clinical governance practices associated with clinical units' performance and mortality? A cross-sectional study through a record-linkage procedure.

Objective: Assessment of the knowledge and application as well as perceived utility by doctors of clinical governance tools in order to explore their impact on clinical units' performance measured through mortality rates and efficiency indicators.

Methods: This research is a cross-sectional study with a deterministic record-linkage procedure. The sample includes n = 1250 doctors (n = 249 chiefs of clinical units; n = 1001 physicians) working in six public hospitals located in the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy.

Amygdala responses to masked and low spatial frequency fearful faces: a preliminary fMRI study in panic disorder.

Previous studies have demonstrated amygdala activation in response to fearful faces even if presented below the threshold of conscious visual perception. It has also been proposed that subcortical regions are selectively sensitive to low spatial frequency (LSF) information. However, chronic hyperarousal may reduce amygdala activation in panic disorder (PD).

Pituitary gland volume in currently depressed and remitted depressed patients.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been associated with increased pituitary gland volume (PGV), which is thought to reflect stress-related dysregulation related to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. However, it is unclear whether PGV alteration reflects a "dynamic" change related to current mood instability or if it is a stable marker of illness vulnerability. In this study we investigated PGV in currently depressed patients (cMDD) (n=31), remitted depressed patients (rMDD) (n=31) and healthy controls (n=33), using 1.

[Significance of the upper neck joints in the etiology of pain in the head and neck area].

The function of the atlantooccipital joints is intimately connected with the function of the spine in total and the temporomandibular joint in special. The present investigation gives report of the frequent combination of headache, facial pain and pain in the temporomandibular joint, which could be found in patients of an orthopedic practice. The role of the atlantooccipital joints is stressed in a special manner and explained with the function of the arthromuscular control loop.

Psychiatry without asylums: origins and prospects in Italy.

In 1978, Italy became the first country in the world to pass a law eliminating mental hospitals and replacing them with services in the community. This victory was in large part due to the foresight and commitment of psychiatrist Franco Basaglia and his colleagues, whose work showed how psychiatric assistance could be realized in practice without asylums and without force and violence. This article analyzes why the anti-institutional reform took place in Italy when it did, and reviews twenty years of reform activity involving an alliance between democratic mental health professionals, politicians, workers' organizations, and private citizens.