Substance Use During Pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a period of transition with physical changes in the maternal body but also mental and psychological ones. This phase may be accompanied by symptoms of anxiety, depression or irritability, which are part of non-pathological adaptation mechanisms. These symptoms can, however, be intense and constitute real psychiatric syndromes, particularly when the woman presents vulnerability factors.

Running to Prevent Depression; Maximal Aerobic Speed for Adolescents in the South of Belgium. Comparison With Their Parents' Generation and the Impact on Their Physical and Mental Health.

Objective: To assess aerobic fitness of adolescents, using maximum aerobic speed (MAS). To test the relationship between MAS and other variables. To compare our 2019/21 data to similar data published in 1996.

Awake Bruxism Treated with Pregabaline in a Patient with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Background: Bruxism is excessive teeth grinding or jaw clenching. Several symptoms are commonly associated with bruxism, including hypersensitive teeth, aching jaw muscles, headaches, tooth wear, and damage to dental restorations. There are two types of bruxism, awake bruxism and sleep bruxism.

Teenage pregnancy in Belgium: protective factors in a migrant population.

Background: Teenage pregnancies occur frequently in developing countries and are associated with social issues, including poverty, lower levels of health and educational attainment. Although frequent in European countries in the 20th century today, teenage pregnancies account for only 4% of first children. These pregnancies are usually unplanned and they are considered a vulnerability factor during the pregnancy and the postnatal period, both for the mother and the child.

A transient personality disorder induced by football matches.

Background: Personality disorders are a class of mental diseases characterized by inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, involving several areas of functioning, such as affectivity, impulse control, ways of perceiving and thinking and reaction to stress factors. In the literature, personality disorders have always been described as stable patterns of long duration, and their onset can be found during adolescence or early adulthood. These patterns are associated with significant distress or impairment in a patient's life in which a main element affects every aspect of living, and in which no biological or other pathologies exist to assist in its identification.

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome in a patient treated with clotiapine.

Background: Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS), which is linked to the use of antipsychotic medication, is a potentially lethal neurological emergency. The interest of our study is that NMS induced by the use of clotiapine has never previously been described.

Subjects And Methods: We present the case of a 61-year old man whose sleep disorders were treated with clotiapine 40 mg/day.

Incidence and prevention of deep vein thrombosis in restrained psychiatric patients.

Background: Although physical restraint is still used in psychiatric inpatient settings, it sometimes causes serious side effects, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and resulting pulmonary embolism. The aim of this study was to review the literature investigating the incidence of the DVT in restrained psychiatric patients, to identify the risk factors of this condition and the effectiveness of routine prophylaxis.

Subjects And Methods: Studies investigating associations between deep vein thrombosis and restrained psychiatric patients were searched in the Pubmed database.

Admitting or Discharging Patients with Opiate or Alcohol Related Problems? Psychiatrist Uncertainty and Welfare Losses.

Background: Much attention has focused on variations in therapeutic strategies across catchment areas and the related question of whether the differences in attitudes are due to socio-economic variables in the studied population or to physician uncertainty about making a specific therapeutic recommendation.

Subjects And Method: We monitored the emergency admission rate for patients with alcohol or opiate related problems of 9 resident psychiatrists for a year. To rule out differences in population characteristics, the study took place in only one hospital: Brugmann University Hospital, whose catchment area is the north of Brussels.

Conditional Reasoning in Schizophrenic Patients.

Conditional reasoning (if p then q) is used very frequently in everyday situations. Conditional reasoning is impaired in brain-lesion patients, psychopathy, alcoholism, and polydrug dependence. Many neurocognitive deficits have also been described in schizophrenia.

Megadose bromazepam dependence.

Background: Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are among the most widely prescribed drugs in developed countries. Since BZDs can produce tolerance and dependence even in a short time, their use is recommended for a very limited time. However, these recommendations have been largely disregarded.

Bipolar Disorder and Early Affective Trauma.

Background: Bipolar disorder is a chronic psychiatric disease with a high prevalence and is a major psychosocial and medical burden. The exact etiological pathways of bipolar disorder are not fully understood. Genetic factors are known to play an important role in the etiology of bipolar disorder.

Emotion Regulation in Alcohol Dependence.

Background: The main aim of this study was to investigate, in alcohol-dependent (AD) patients, the use of the 5 emotion regulation strategies specified in Gross's (1998, Rev Gen Psychol, 2, 271) process model of emotion regulation with the use of a semi-structured interview allowing a detailed and high-quality assessment of emotion regulation strategies. A secondary aim was to examine the possible influence of protracted abstinence and detoxification on emotion dysregulation. Finally, the association between the level of craving and the types of regulation strategies was investigated.

An economic analysis of different cannabis decriminalization scenarios.

Background: Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in European countries. In countries with repressive cannabis policies, prevalence is not lower than in those with tolerant laws. Repressive policies not only have uncertain benefits but they are also expensive.

Management of Demented Patients with Urinary Incontinence: A Case Study.

Objective: To assess whether a demented patient with urinary incontinence (UI) could learn to use an adapted version of timed voiding (i.e., instead of being led by a caregiver, the patient learns to perform timed voiding by herself).

Theory of mind difficulties in patients with alcohol dependence: beyond the prefrontal cortex dysfunction hypothesis.

Background: Previous studies have shown that alcohol-dependent (AD) individuals have difficulties inferring other people's emotion, understanding humor, and detecting a faux pas. This study aimed at further understanding the nature of such "Theory of Mind" (ToM) difficulties.

Methods: A total of 34 recently detoxified AD and 34 paired controls were compared based on 2 nonverbal and video-based false belief tasks.

Proposing concurrent alcohol and tobacco withdrawal. Analysis of the perceptions of Belgian nurses in the alcoholism unit.

Introduction: Dual tobacco-alcohol addiction is common, but the literature often considers only the issue of withdrawal from one substance at a time and emphasises that the assessment of tobacco use seems to be neglected in psychiatry.

Subject And Methods: In this study, we analysed the perceptions of nurses working in alcoholism units before and after motivational interviewing trainingon proposing concurrent alcohol-tobacco withdrawal to patients.

Results: Nurses, unlike psychiatry postgraduates, were able to achieve acomprehensive and systematic history of substance abuse, but bothtended not to recommend concurrent tobacco-alcohol withdrawal.

The cost of alcohol in the workplace in Belgium.

Background: It has been suggested that alcohol problems have a major impact in the workplace. It has long been recognized that misuse can have serious consequences for the productivity of workers. The extent of the problem is still an uncalculated cost.

Citalopram may reduce sympathoadrenal hyperactivity in elderly depressed patients: an open multicenter study in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Introduction: Through effects of catecholamines upon the heart, blood vessels and platelets, sympathoadrenal hyperactivity contributes to the development of cardiovascular diseases in elderly depressed patients. To assess the cardiovascular effect of Citalopram in elderly depressed patients, data from an open multicenter study in Belgium and Luxembourg, in which a total of 811 patients were evaluated, was retrospectively analysed. Although the aim of the study was to assess the efficacy and safety of Citalopram, blood pressure and heart rate were also monitored.

Impaired emotional facial expression recognition in alcoholics, opiate dependence subjects, methadone maintained subjects and mixed alcohol-opiate antecedents subjects compared with normal controls.

The present study aims to explore whether an impairment in emotional facial expressions (EFE) decoding is specific to alcoholism compared with opiate dependence. An EFE decoding test consisting of 16 photographs of EFE portraying happiness, anger, sadness and disgust was administered to five different groups of 30 subjects each: recently detoxified alcoholics (RA); opiate addicts under methadone maintenance treatment (OM); detoxified opiate addicts (OA); detoxified subjects with both alcohol and opiate dependence antecedents (DAO); and normal controls (NC). Repeated measures analysis of variance using a multivariate approach was conducted on EFE decoding accuracy scores with group as the between-subjects factor.