Factors Associated with Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Acceptance Among Haitian and African-American parents of Adolescent Sons.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Cecilia Marquez, Justine Lavoye, Elaine Shu and Hailey Tipton for their efforts with participant recruitment and data collection.

Objective: To assess knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices related to HPV vaccination among African-Americans and Haitian immigrant parents, and to compare vaccination rates of their sons.

Study Design: We performed semi-structured interviews with parents of boys aged 11-17 who had not yet received the HPV vaccine.

Ethnic differences in perceived benefits and barriers to HPV vaccine acceptance: a qualitative analysis of young African American, Haitian, Caucasian, and Latino men.

Purpose: To examine the attitudes toward human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among young men from African American, Haitian, Caucasian, and Latino backgrounds.

Methods: We used in-person surveys at an urban teaching hospital from 2010 to 2012 to examine the racial and ethnic differences in the perceived benefits and barriers to HPV vaccination and vaccine mandate acceptance among 18- to 22-year-old African American, Haitian, Caucasian, and Latino men.

Results: A total of 89 men participated (35% African American, 29% Haitian, 20% Latino, and 16% white).

Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding HPV vaccination: ethnic and cultural differences between African-American and Haitian immigrant women.

Background: Black women have higher rates of cervical cancer and lower rates of HPV vaccination than White women in the United States, and Haitians may be an especially vulnerable subgroup of Black women. To reduce these disparities, understanding differences among subgroups of Black women is crucial.

Methods: The objective of our study was to assess similarities and differences in the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward HPV vaccination and actual vaccination rates among African-American and Haitian immigrant women and their daughters.

Analysis of peripheral immune activation in schizophrenia using quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

Immune system abnormalities in schizophrenia include a shift from a Type 1 (cellular) to a Type 2 (humoral) immune response. To characterize the activation status of the immune system in schizophrenia, we examined the pattern of gene expression in peripheral blood cells for three Th1 cytokines (interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-2 (IL-2)), and one Th2 cytokine (interleukin-10 (IL-10)). In a cross-sectional study, we used quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to compare the mRNA levels of IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, IL-2, and IL-10 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) between 15 schizophrenia patients and 15 matched healthy controls.

Modafinil for clozapine-treated schizophrenia patients: a double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot trial.

Background: Patients with schizophrenia often suffer from cognitive deficits and negative symptoms that are poorly responsive to antipsychotics including clozapine. Clozapine-induced sedation can worsen cognition and impair social and occupational functioning.

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of modafinil for negative symptoms, cognition, and wakefulness/fatigue in DSM-IV-diagnosed schizophrenia patients treated with clozapine.

Extinction memory is impaired in schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia is associated with abnormalities in emotional processing and social cognition, which might result from disruption of the underlying neural mechanism(s) governing emotional learning and memory. To investigate this possibility, we measured the acquisition and extinction of conditioned fear responses and delayed recall of extinction in schizophrenia and control subjects.

Methods: Twenty-eight schizophrenia and 18 demographically matched control subjects underwent a 2-day fear conditioning, extinction learning, and extinction recall procedure, in which skin conductance response (SCR) magnitude was used as the index of conditioned responses.

A placebo-controlled study of sildenafil effects on cognition in schizophrenia.

Background: Phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors increase cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) concentrations in the intracellular pathway activated by N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptors which is believed to mediate long-term potentiation and memory consolidation. The PDE5 inhibitor sildenafil has been shown to enhance memory in animal models. In addition, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, another component of the NMDA/nitric oxide/cGMP intracellular pathway, has been reported to be dysregulated in schizophrenia patients.

Hepatitis C in schizophrenia: screening experience in a community-dwelling clozapine cohort.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection occurs in up to 20% of patients with chronic mental illnesses. To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C in a diagnostically well-defined sample, the authors screened all schizophrenia outpatients in a clozapine clinic (N=98) for HCV antibodies. Eight patients were positive for hepatitis C antibodies (antibody-positive prevalence: 8.

Risperidone augmentation for schizophrenia partially responsive to clozapine: a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Rationale: Risperidone augmentation of clozapine in refractory schizophrenia has theoretical but only inconsistent support from clinical trials.

Objectives: To examine if adding risperidone to stable yet symptomatic schizophrenia outpatients on optimized clozapine monotherapy improves psychopathology.

Methods: We conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled parallel-group trial of a fixed dose of 4 mg/day risperidone added for 6 weeks in 24 outpatients with schizophrenia.