Awareness of treatment needs and length of stay amongst psychiatric inpatients.

Introduction: Inpatient psychiatric units experience significant pressure from third party payers to keep length of stay (LOS) to a minimum despite having to treat more severely ill patients. However, there is a paucity of empiric data for guiding treatment decisions that maximize therapeutic outcome while minimizing LOS. We therefore endeavored to begin utilizing a newly created psychometric instrument that assesses patient psychological factors, which we propose will allow for LOS prediction and individualization of therapeutic outcome.

A study of polypharmacy with second generation antipsychotics in patients with severe and persistent mental illness.

Background: There is a paucity of empirical support for polypharmacy with second generation (atypical) antipsychotics (SGAs), especially in understudied populations.

Objective: To investigate the frequency, effectiveness, and safety of this practice in patients with severe and persistent mental illness who are chronically hospitalized.

Methods: A chart review was conducted at a state psychiatric hospital in Syracuse, NY.

Endogenous opiates and the placebo effect: a meta-analytic review.

Objective: A meta-analysis was performed to investigate the ability of placebo administration to reduce self-report of pain and to examine whether placebo-induced pain reduction might have physiological and psychological underpinnings.

Method: Forty-five effect sizes and 1183 participants from 12 studies were meta-analyzed for the effects of placebo and the opioid antagonist, naloxone, on self-report of pain.

Results: Analyses showed that placebo administration was associated with a decrease in self-report of pain, and a hidden or blind injection of naloxone reversed placebo-induced analgesia.

Sociotropic cognition moderates stress-induced cardiovascular responsiveness in women through effects on total peripheral resistance, but not cardiac output.

Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of mortality in women, few studies have examined the role of psychosocial factors in its development. This study examined the moderating effects of sociotropic cognition (SC), a need for social acceptance and approval, on psychosocial stress-induced cardiovascular responsiveness (CVR) and affect reactivity in women. Sixty-eight normotensive, college-aged females were randomly assigned to a low or high social threat condition.

Stress, glucocorticoids, and memory: a meta-analytic review.

Although a strong psychoneuroendocrine linkage exists between stress, glucocorticoids and memory, the relationship is not always straightforward. Eighty-eight effect sizes and 1642 participants from 28 studies were meta-analyzed for the effects of stress on memory performance and glucocorticoid activation. Analyses showed that stress was associated with glucocorticoid activation and declarative memory decline.