How psychiatrists should introduce themselves in the first consultation: an experimental study.

Background: How psychiatrists introduce themselves in the first consultation may influence the therapeutic relationship. There is no evidence about what type of introduction patients prefer.

Aims: To assess experimentally patients' preferences for how psychiatrists introduce themselves.

Psychological symptoms as long-term consequences of war experiences.

Background/aims: War experiences can affect mental health, but large-scale studies on the long-term impact are rare. We aimed to assess long-term mental health consequences of war in both people who stayed in the conflict area and refugees.

Method: On average 8 years after the war in former Yugoslavia, participants were recruited by probabilistic sampling in 5 Balkan countries and by registers and networking in 3 Western European countries.

Treatment outcomes and costs at specialized centers for the treatment of PTSD after the war in former Yugoslavia.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequent consequence of war experience, and specialized centers have been established in some war-affected areas to provide treatment. This study assessed treatment costs and outcomes in such centers in former Yugoslavia.

Methods: An observational study was conducted in four specialized treatment centers (in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina).

Consequences of untreated posttraumatic stress disorder following war in former Yugoslavia: morbidity, subjective quality of life, and care costs.

Aim: To assess long-term mental health outcomes in people who suffer from war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but do not receive appropriate treatment.

Methods: We interviewed 264 subjects from former Yugoslavia, who lived in Croatia, Serbia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. All of them had suffered from PTSD at some point following the war, but never received psychiatric or psychological treatment.

Who seeks treatment after a traumatic event and who does not? A review of findings on mental health service utilization.

This review aimed to identify factors associated with seeking treatment from mental health services after a traumatic event. Databases of literature were searched in a systematic manner and 24 relevant articles were found. Although many of the findings are inconsistent, the most important factors associated with treatment seeking appear to be a higher level of psychopathology, the type and level of the traumatic event, and sociodemographic characteristics, in particular female gender.

Subjective quality of life and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Subjective quality of life (SQOL) and its predictors were assessed in 117 patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a specialized clinic. Scores were compared with other samples. PTSD patients had lower SQOL than the comparison groups.