Socioeconomic inequalities in health during the Great Recession: A scoping review of the research literature.

The so-called 'Great Recession' in Europe triggered widespread concerns about population health, as reflected by an upsurge in empirical research on the health impacts of the economic crisis. A growing body of empirical studies has also been devoted to socioeconomic inequalities in health during the Great Recession. The aim of the current study is to summarise this health inequality literature by means of a scoping review.

Do psychological job demands, decision control and social support predictreturn to work three months after a return-to-work (RTW) programme? The rapid-RTW cohort study.

Background: Long-term sickness absence is a considerable health and economic problem in the industrialised world. Factors that might predict return to work (RTW) are therefore of interest.

Objective: To examine the impact of psychosocial work characteristics on RTW three months after the end of a RTW programme.

Lorazepam provocation test in purported schizophrenia with lack of treatment response.

Some patients with severe mental disorders are refractory to psychotherapeutic or psychopharmacological interventions. We present a patient who at the age of 19 developed several schizophrenia - suspect symptoms. Soon inexplicable general seizures where observed.

Leadership by fragmented destruction after a merger: an example from a facility of acute psychiatry.

Hospitals are labor intensive facilities based on highly skilled employees. A merger of hospitals is an effort to increase and rationalize this production. Decisions behind a merger are made at the top leadership level.

Substance abusers in an acute psychiatric facility: a diagnostic and logistic challenge.

Acute resident psychiatric facilities in Norway usually get their patients after referral from a medical doctor. Acute psychiatric wards are the only places accepting persons in need of emergency hospitalisation when emergency units in somatic hospitals do not accept the patient. Resident patients at one random chosen day were scrutinized in an acute psychiatric facility with 36 beds serving a catchment area of 165 000.

Benefits of Returning to Work After ECT.

Background: Severe unipolar or bipolar depression is often not helped by pharmacotherapy and/or psychotherapeutic treatment alone, whereas more than 80% of these patients remit after sessions of electroconvulsive treatment (ECT). Getting patients back to work after a severe depression may be important for maintaining the effect of ECT.

Methods: Twenty consecutive patients remitted to an acute psychiatric hospital for depression underwent ECT.

Doctor-certified sickness absence in first and second trimesters of pregnancy among native and immigrant women in Norway.

Aims: The authors sought to estimate differences in doctor-certified sickness absence during pregnancy among immigrant and native women.

Methods: Population-based cohort study of pregnant women attending three Child Health Clinics in Groruddalen, Oslo, and their offspring. Questionnaire data were collected at gestational weeks 10-20 and 28.

Intractable schizo-affective disorder successfully treated with electroconvulsive treatment over six years.

Some patients with severe mental disorders are refractory to psychotherapeutic or psychopharmacological interventions. We describe a patient with severe symptoms from the age of 16 to 44. Her illness is best described as a schizo-affective disorder.

Toxoplasmosis Infection and Cognitive Deficit after Electroconvulsive Treatment (ECT), Is There a Connection?

Electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) has developed over 70 years to a modern, effective way of lifting depressive moods. Memory loss and visual acuity after electroconvulsive treatment is the only remaining relevant criticism of the treatment modality when considering the overall rate of remission from this treatment compared to all other treatment modalities. A depressive state impedes memory, and memory improves on several qualities of cognition after treatment.

Memory loss after electroconvulsive treatment--may the sudden alleviation of depression-inducing memories explain patient despair?

Unlabelled: Electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) has developed over 70 years to a modern, effective way of lifting depressive moods. Memory loss after electroconvulsive treatment is the only remaining relevant criticism of the treatment modality when considering the overall rate of remission from this treatment compared to all other treatment modalities. A depressive state impedes memory.

Electroconvulsive treatment of a patient with Parkinson's disease and moderate depression.

Depression is a usual comorbidity in patients with Parkinson's disease. It has been known for more than 50 years that electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) has a positive effect on the muscular symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Many countries do not allow giving ECT for this indication.

Migrant participation in Norwegian health care. A qualitative study using key informants.

Background: Little is known about how migrants adapt to first-world public health systems. In Norway, patients are assigned a registered general practitioner (RGP) to provide basic care and serve as gatekeeper for other medical services.

Objectives: To explore determinants of migrant compliance with the RGP scheme and obstacles that migrants may experience.

Sense of coherence in patients treated for depression with ECT.

Objective: The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the Antonovsky Sense of Coherence test administered before and after electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) can contribute more information pertinent to outcome than a test of depression.

Method: Twenty patients with a severe unipolar or bipolar depression underwent a series of unipolar ECT under standard conditions. As part of the routine of the department, the patients filled in, before and after ECT, the following questionnaires: Beck Depression Inventory (Beck), 20-item version and Antonovsky Sense of Coherence test (SOC), 13-item version.

Electroconvulsive treatment--more than electricity?: An Odyssey of facilities.

Objective: To investigate whether the practice of electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) today is done in a comparable way in different hospitals on several continents.

Materials And Methods: During visits to the ECT facilities of 14 hospitals on 3 continents, comparisons were made, and responsible health professionals were interviewed using a semistructured guide. It is emphasized that the present article is not the result of a well-structured research, but of reflections after observing a lack of homogeneity among facilities.

The level of non-Western immigrants' use of acute psychiatric care compared with ethnic Norwegians over an 8-year period.

Immigrants are assumed by many to have more mental health problems than the population in the countries they have emigrated to, and clinicians have the impression that an increasing number of non-Western immigrants are referred to acute psychiatric care. Patients referred over an 8-year period to an acute care facility, responsible for a catchment area of close to 100,000 inhabitants in Oslo, Norway, were scrutinized to study the latter assumption. In total 792 men and 701 women (47.

Duration of bed occupancy as calculated at a random chosen day in an acute care ward. Implications for the use of scarce resources in psychiatric care.

Background: Psychiatric acute wards are obliged to admit patients without delay according to the Act on Compulsive Psychiatric Care. Residential long term treatment facilities and rehabilitation facilities may use a waiting list. Patients, who may not be discharged from the acute ward or should not wait there, then occupy acute ward beds.

Serum albumin and blood pressure: a population-based, cross-sectional study.

Background And Purpose: Information about the association between serum albumin and blood pressure is limited. The purpose of the present paper was to investigate this relationship in different age groups in males and females.

Methods: In the cross-sectional Norwegian Oslo Health Study, the concentration of serum albumin and blood pressure was determined in 5071 men and women 30-75 years of age.

[Lipid balance and cardiovascular risk in patients in a psychiatric long-term facility].

Unlabelled: Increase in weight and changes in lipid and glucose metabolism often occur in severe mental illness. It is established that this may hinge on the mental illness as such, and on lifestyle, resident living in institutions and on medication. We performed an explorative study of these factors in a general psychiatric long-term facility.

Mortality and Return to Work of Drug Abusers From Therapeutic Community Treatment 3 Years After Entry.

BACKGROUND: The outcome of therapeutic community treatment for drug abuse has been disputed with regard to mortality and rehabilitation to school or work as compared with other treatment modalities. METHOD: All patients (N = 130) admitted to a therapeutic community during 3 consecutive years (1996-1998), who had failed to stop abusing drugs after ambulatory and primary care initiatives, were assessed 1 to 4 years (mean = 36.5 months) after end of treatment.