Acquired Hearing Loss, Anger, and Emotional Distress: The Mediating Role of Perceived Disability.

The aim of the study was to test whether acquired hearing loss (AHL)-related perceived disability mediates the association between AHL and psychological outcomes, including anger. Two-hundred ninety-seven consecutive outpatients with AHL assessed by pure tone average (PTA) loss completed the following: Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults (HHIA), State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Diagnostic Criteria for Use in Psychosomatic Research (DCPR), and Social Functioning Questionnaire. In the sample, composed of 44.

Vertigo "in the pink": The impact of female gender on psychiatric-psychosomatic comorbidity in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo patients.

Background: Comorbidity between vestibular and psychiatric disorders in predisposed individuals is underestimated, untreated, and may result in chronicization and poor quality of life. There are few studies concerning the type and the prevalence of psychiatric-psychosomatic distress in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate psychiatric-psychosomatic comorbidities, in particular anxiety, depression, somatization symptoms, and alexithymia, in a group of BPPV patients compared with healthy subjects, and according to gender.

Stigma and discrimination toward mental illness: translation and validation of the Italian version of the Attribution Questionnaire-27 (AQ-27-I).

Purpose: The aim of this study was to translate the Attribution Questionnaire-27 (AQ-27) to the Italian language (AQ-27-I), and to examine the reliability and validity of this new Italian version.

Methods: The questionnaire was translated using the standard translation/back-translation method. Cronbach's alpha and intraclass coefficients were used to estimate instrument reliability.

The different psychological profiles of subjects attending melanoma screening campaigns and those delaying diagnosis: an aid for designing preventive campaigns?

Patient delay in seeking medical attention for melanoma (MM) constitutes one of the main challenges in designing prevention campaigns. No conclusive studies exploring psychological aspects of those patients, using standardized psychometric instruments, are currently available. We hypothesized that the attitude toward illness of subjects attending the melanoma screening day (EMD) would differ from patients diagnosed with MM following the usual clinical pathways.

Aripiprazole: effectiveness and safety under naturalistic conditions.

A retrospective study was conducted to examine aripiprazole's effectiveness and safety in a naturalistic treatment setting in both inpatients and outpatients affected by schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. All patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective and delusional disorders, and schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders treated with aripiprazole from March 1, 2005, to March 1, 2006, in the authors' community mental health service were divided into outpatient (n=26) and inpatient (n=17) groups; the average treatment periods were 204 days and 25 days, respectively. Effectiveness was evaluated by improvement of symptoms (a 25% reduction of Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale [BPRS] score from baseline) and functioning level (a 50% increase of Global Assessment of Functioning [GAF] scale score from baseline), as well as dropout rate.

Disruptive and dangerous behaviour by patients on acute psychiatric wards in three European centres.

Background: The disturbed behaviour of acute in-patients can have serious consequences, and methods of management are contentious and vary between countries. Little is known about this variation and its relationship to the characteristics of in-patient populations.

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare rates and patterns of disturbed behaviours and containment methods in acute psychiatric wards in three centres in the United Kingdom, Italy and Greece.

[Cardiovascular risk factors in severely ill psychiatric patients].

The most recent European guidelines for coronary heart disease (CHD) prevention acknowledges that stress/anxiety and depression are independent risk factors for CHD. The Psychiatric Patients Health Status Study is a transversal study on the health condition of 1.590 serious psychiatric patients.