[A social study of a group of depressed patients recovering in a private clinic].

Depression is a widespread illness in Sardinia and is treated mainly in private clinics which accept National Health patients. The aim of the present study was to evidence socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of depressed subjects who turn to these clinics. Furthermore we will examine the reason which led to the choice of a private clinic on the basis of services provided by the same, of those available in public hospitals and of patients' psychopathological history and socioeconomic characteristics.

Comparison between clinician-rated and self-reported depressive symptoms in Italian psychiatric patients.

The Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology is a new scale for measuring depressive symptoms. The reliability, validity and correlations between self-report and clinician-rated versions of the scale were examined in 86 Italian psychiatric patients. Results confirmed the validity and internal consistency of the scales.

Double-blind evaluation of the safety and hypnotic efficacy of lormetazepam in general practice.

The efficacy and safety of lormetazepam (LMZ) and placebo were compared in 30 patients with sleep difficulties who were treated by general practitioners. During the three weeks of the study, each patient received placebo during either the first or last week and 1 mg/night of LMZ during the other two weeks. Neither patients nor physicians knew which week's medication was active drug and which was placebo.