Publications by authors named "Llorca P"
Importance: Amid escalating mental health challenges among young individuals, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing postpandemic trends is critical.
Objective: To examine mental health care utilization and prescription rates for children, adolescents, and young adults before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based time trend study used an interrupted time series analysis to examine mental health care and prescription patterns among the French population 25 years and younger.
Background: Although self-esteem is a relatively new concept, first developed in the field of social psychology, it has gained increasing importance in psychiatry, especially as a diagnostic criterion. However, it is poorly evaluated in clinical practice. The lack of an instrument allowing an easy global assessment may be the reason for this.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Multiple genetic and environmental risk factors play a role in the development of both schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and affective psychoses. How they act in combination is yet to be clarified.
Methods: We analyzed 573 first episode psychosis cases and 1005 controls, of European ancestry.
Background: The association between cannabis and psychosis is established, but the role of underlying genetics is unclear. We used data from the EU-GEI case-control study and UK Biobank to examine the independent and combined effect of heavy cannabis use and schizophrenia polygenic risk score (PRS) on risk for psychosis.
Methods: Genome-wide association study summary statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort were used to calculate schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder (CUD) PRS for 1098 participants from the EU-GEI study and 143600 from the UK Biobank.
Background: In patients with treatment resistant depression (TRD), the ESCAPE-TRD study showed esketamine nasal spray was superior to quetiapine extended release.
Aims: To determine the robustness of the ESCAPE-TRD results and confirm the superiority of esketamine nasal spray over quetiapine extended release.
Method: ESCAPE-TRD was a randomised, open-label, rater-blinded, active-controlled phase IIIb trial.
Article Synopsis
- Mental health is a significant societal challenge, complicated by a disconnect between biological factors and actual diseases.
- Recent decades have seen few new drug approvals, but new interest from pharmaceutical companies and investors is fostering optimism in neuropsychiatric drug development.
- The review discusses current promising drug discovery efforts and highlights future possibilities for advancing this critical area of mental health treatment.
Objective: To identify the COVID-19 pandemic impact on well-being/mental health, coping strategies, and risk factors in adolescents worldwide.
Method: This study was based on an anonymous online multi-national/multi-language survey in the general population (representative/weighted non-representative samples, 14-17 years of age), measuring change in well-being (World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index [WHO-5]/range = 0-100) and psychopathology (validated composite P-score/range = 0-100), WHO-5 <50 and <29, pre- vs during COVID-19 pandemic (April 26, 2020-June 26, 2022). Coping strategies and 9 a priori- defined individual/cumulative risk factors were measured.
Background: Cannabis use and familial vulnerability to psychosis have been associated with social cognition deficits. This study examined the potential relationship between cannabis use and cognitive biases underlying social cognition and functioning in patients with first episode psychosis (FEP), their siblings, and controls.
Methods: We analyzed a sample of 543 participants with FEP, 203 siblings, and 1168 controls from the EU-GEI study using a correlational design.
Background: Quality of life is decreased in bipolar disorders (BD) and contributes to poor prognosis. However, little is known about the causal pathways that may affect it. This study aimed to explore health-related QoL (HRQoL) in BD and investigate its relationship with cognition and psychosocial functioning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Anhedonic symptoms in bipolar I (BP-I) depression are associated with decreased quality of life and impaired functioning. We evaluated the effects of cariprazine in patients with BP-I depression with lower or higher levels of anhedonia at baseline.
Methods: Data were pooled from three clinical trials (NCT01396447, NCT02670538, NCT02670551) analyzing the effects of cariprazine 1.
Article Synopsis
- - The study investigates the link between urban living conditions (urbanicity) and schizotypy, a potential precursor to psychosis, suggesting this relationship varies significantly between North-western and Southern Europe.
- - Researchers assessed 1080 individuals across 14 sites in both regions, measuring urbanicity through local population density and controlling for factors like age and childhood experiences.
- - Findings reveal that higher population density is strongly associated with increased schizotypy in North-western Europe, while the effect is notably weaker in Southern Europe, indicating that urbanization’s impact on mental health is not uniform across different contexts.
Childhood adversity is associated with various clinical dimensions in psychosis; however, how genetic vulnerability shapes the adversity-associated psychopathological signature is yet to be studied. We studied data of 583 First Episode Psychosis (FEP) cases from the EU-GEI FEP case-control study, including Polygenic risk scores for major depressive disorder (MDD-PRS), bipolar disorder (BD-PRS) and schizophrenia (SZ-PRS); childhood adversity measured with the total score of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ); and positive, negative, depressive and manic psychopathological domains from a factor model of transdiagnostic dimensions. Genes and environment interactions were explored as a departure from a multiplicative effect of PRSs and total CTQ on each dimension.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe hidden crisis: Moral injury among French healthcare workers.
J Epidemiol Popul Health
December 2024
Background: Amidst reports that one in five doctors and one in four nurses might leave their professions within three to five years due to high levels of burnout, this qualitative review explored the deeper crisis impacting healthcare workers in France, questioning whether factors beyond burnout contributed to their distress.
Methodology: This study analyzed testimonies from French healthcare workers and reviewed relevant literature to uncover the underlying causes of their distress.
Results: The qualitative analysis revealed profound distress among healthcare workers, stemming from a misalignment between their ethical standards, specifically the principle to 'put patients first,' and the practical realities of their work.
Article Synopsis
- Bipolar disorder (BD) is a complex mental health condition, and researchers aimed to identify a neurodevelopmental phenotype (NDP) that contributes to its development and impacts clinical outcomes.
- By analyzing data from over 4,400 BD patients, they established nine specific clinical features that characterize this NDP, which are linked to poorer prognosis and treatment responses.
- The findings suggest that patients with a higher NDP load may have overlapping genetic factors with ADHD, indicating a potential shared biological basis for these disorders.
Article Synopsis
- The COH-FIT study is a large, multi-country survey aimed at identifying factors affecting wellbeing and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving a representative sample of 121,066 adults.
- Researchers analyzed both modifiable (like coping strategies and pre-pandemic stress) and non-modifiable factors (such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status), finding significant negative effects on wellbeing and psychopathology scores during the pandemic.
- The study identified 15 modifiable and 9 non-modifiable risk factors, alongside 13 modifiable and 3 non-modifiable protective factors, emphasizing the importance of social support and coping strategies in mental health outcomes.
Article Synopsis
- There is a lack of comprehensive international studies examining multidimensional mental health and wellbeing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly identifying at-risk groups and effective coping strategies.
- The COH-FIT survey, conducted from April 2020 to June 2022 in 30 languages, assessed changes in well-being and psychopathology among over 121,000 participants, revealing significant declines in mental health during the pandemic.
- Key findings indicated that certain demographics, such as young adults and people in low-income countries, were particularly affected, while coping strategies like exercise, internet use, and maintaining social contacts emerged as the most effective for managing stress.
Background: Nutrition is largely affected in bipolar disorder (BD), however, there is a lack of understanding on the relationship between dietary categories, BD, and the prevalence of metabolic syndrome. The objective of this study is to examine dietary trends in BD and it is hypothesized that diets with increased consumption of seafood and high-fiber carbohydrates will be correlated to improved patient outcomes, and a lower frequency of metabolic syndrome.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study includes two French cohorts.
Article Synopsis
- This study investigates the link between mitochondrial blood biomarkers, specifically lactate and circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA, and markers of metabolic syndrome in bipolar disorder patients, hypothesizing that lactate levels would be higher in those with metabolic syndrome.
- The research involved a large cohort of 837 stable bipolar disorder patients and 237 others for validation, revealing that higher lactate levels correlated significantly with factors like triglycerides and blood pressure, indicating a strong association with metabolic syndrome.
- The findings suggest that while lactate is a key biomarker related to metabolic syndrome in bipolar patients, circulating mitochondrial DNA levels do not show this same correlation, highlighting the potential for personalized treatment strategies based on these metabolite profiles.
Objectives: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most effective treatments in mood disorders, mainly in major depressive episode (MDE) in the context of either unipolar (MDD) or bipolar disorder (BD). However, ECT remains a neglected and underused treatment. Older people are at high risk patients for the development of adverse drug reactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: The anticholinergic properties of medications are associated with poorer cognitive performance in schizophrenia. Numerous scales have been developed to assess anticholinergic burden and yet, there is no consensus indicating which anticholinergic burden scale is more relevant for patients with schizophrenia. We aimed to identify valid scales for estimating the risk of iatrogenic cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParkinson's Disease: Coping Strategies, Cognitive Restructuring and Deep Brain Stimulation.
J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol
November 2024
Objective: Less is known concerning the evolution of coping strategies before and after deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients.
Methods: In a randomized controlled trial, coping was measured with the neurological version of the CHIP (Coping with Health Injuries and Problem) and the BriefCOPE in PD patients before ( T1: DBS - 2 months) and after (T2: + 3 months, T3: + 6 months) DBS. Patients (N = 50, age 59 ± 5.