[Social representations of psychiatric care in Tunisia].

Background: The progress in the field of the treatment of the mental illnesses is considerable. However, the clinical reality confirms the delay in access to care for numerous patients. This avoidance is due,in big part, to the pejorative representations of the psychiatrics'system care.

[Social representations of the psychiatric diseases in Tunisia].

Background: Nowadays, and thanks to the major transformations experienced by psychiatry, since a half century, we estimate that the perception of the persons with psychiatric disorders would have changed and that they would have acquired the statute of patient with whole share.

Aim: To study social representation of psychiatric diseases in Tunisia.

Methods: Prospective study, based on the socio-anthropological fold of the study "Mental health in general population: images and realities", the social representations associated with "madness", "mental illness" and "depression" in a representative sample of 920 subjects.

[Attitude of general practitioners faced to schizophrenia].

Background: The chronic character of schizophrenia, the suffering that it generates, its triple social and human economic cost, make of it a major stake of public health. The general practitioners are the first actors in the tracking of onset schizophrenia and the follow-up of this chronic pathology.

Aim: To study knowledge, the attitudes and the practices of the general practitioners faced to schizophrenia.

[Clinical and evolutionary characteristics of bipolar disorder according to the polarity of the first episode].

Background: The polarity of the inaugural episode seems to determine the clinical and evolutionary profile of bipolar disorder.

Aim: To study the clinical and evolutionary characteristics bipolar disorder according to the polarity of the first episode.

Methods: We undertook a retrospective, descriptive and comparative study including all the patients reached of bipolar disorder I and II (DSM IV TR) who were hospitalized between January 1 2000 and December 31 2006.

[Offensive and criminal acts in schizophrenia: comparative study according to gender].

Background: Schizophrenia does not involve the same risk of violence among women than men. The offensive and criminal acts were less studied in women.

Aims: To raise the sex ratio of the criminal acts and to seek the characteristics and the risk factors of this female violence.

[The psychiatrist faced with an ordinance on request].

The psychiatrist often receives ordinances on request to inspect the medical files of the patient. Does the response to this request constitutes a violation of the medical secrecy? The texts of law governing the ordinance on request do not oblige the doctor to give an answer and do not expose him to sanctions in case of justifiable refusal. Moreover, the code of ethics, the penal code and the law relating to the personal data protection prohibit the response to an ordinance on request.

Acute psychosis under efavirenz in a HIV patient.

Background: Efavirenz is one of the most prescribed HIV drugs, it can have number of psychiatric adverse effects varying from sleeping disorders to psychotic symptoms.

Aim: Through a case-report study we tried to evaluate the imputability of an acute psychosis to Efavirenz.

Case: Mr.