Achieving Mental Health Equity: Community Psychiatry.

There are historical predicates for the inequities noted in present-day community mental health. Stigma has led to discrimination for those living with mental illness. It is more difficult for research to occur, and to access care (prevention, early identification, evidence-based treatment services) because funding is limited and workforce development curtailed.

Metabolic consequences of using low-dose quetiapine for insomnia in psychiatric patients.

Quetiapine is frequently prescribed for insomnia that is comorbid with psychiatric disorders, but there has been no documentation of metabolic adverse effects associated with this practice. The objective of this study was to document changes in weight, body mass index, and waist circumference that occurred when low-dose quetiapine was used at bedtime for insomnia. The study was a retrospective chart review conducted at a community mental health center.

Efficacy of add-on topiramate therapy in psychiatric patients with weight gain.

Background: Weight gain is a common adverse effect of many psychotropic medications including antipsychotics, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers. There is a growing body of evidence that topiramate may be useful as an add-on therapy to induce weight loss in patients who have experienced psychotropic-induced weight gain.

Objective: To determine the efficacy and tolerability of topiramate for treatment of weight gain in a naturalistic mental health clinic setting.

Medication options for treatment-resistant schizophrenia: implications for global mental health financing.

Treatment resistance in schizophrenia creates a persistent public health problem and leads to repeated hospitalization. In search for a treatment for such patients, psychiatrists have co-prescribed multiple psychotropic medications simultaneously. Such practice is based mostly on clinical experience, rather than research derived evidence.

Residency training in public psychiatry: a review of literature.

Background: Training of psychiatry residents in a conmmunity setting has been emerging as a more rational and reasonable choice for psychiatry residency training, considering the shift of reliance in the recent years for psychiatric services from inpatient care in hospitals to outpatient care in the community.

Methods: A literature review regarding residency training in community psychiatry was performed using the Medline databases. Seven residency training programs' curricula were included in this review.

Clozapine: a clinical review of adverse effects and management.

Clozapine (Clozaril) is a novel and unique prototype atypical, tricyclic, dibenzodiazepine-derivative, antipsychotic agent. It has been proven effective and significantly superior to placebo, as well as to conventional neuroleptics, in several placebo-controlled, double-blind studies in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. It has also been found to produce an incidence of extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) as low as that found with placebo.