Spanish Validation of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research Interview for Assessing Patients' Mental Capacity to Consent to Clinical Research.

The aim of the study was to assess a Spanish adaptation of a method that determines the categorical capacity status of potential participants in research projects. The sample consisted of 120 subjects (40 general medicine inpatients, 40 psychiatric inpatients, and 40 healthy controls). The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT-CR) interview and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were used.

[Spanish validation of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment interview to assess patients competence to consent treatment].

Background And Objective: To validate the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) Spanish version, which assesses the mental capacity of patients to consent treatment, by examining 4 areas (Understanding, Appreciation, Reasoning and Expressing a choice).

Sample: 160 subjects (80 Internal Medicine inpatients, 40 Psychiatric inpatients and 40 healthy controls).

Instruments: MacCAT-T, Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE).

Platelet monoamine oxidase activity in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Response to SSRIs suggests the implication of the serotonergic system in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, biological studies on serotonergic function in OCD have yielded contradictory results. Platelet monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity has been proposed as an index of cerebral serotonin activity.

Perceived quality of life in obsessive-compulsive disorder: related factors.

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects young adults and has great impact on the social, emotional and work spheres.

Methods: We measured perceived quality of life (QOL) in OCD patients, in order to analyse socio-demographic and clinical factors that may be associated with QOL perception. 64 OCD outpatients were assessed with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for DSM-IV, the Yale-Brown Obsessions and Compulsions scale (Y-BOCS), Hamilton's depression scale and the SF-36 self-administered global QOL perception scale.

A pilot genetic study of the continuum between compulsivity and impulsivity in females: the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism.

According to some authors the obsessive-compulsive (OC) spectrum includes on one extreme, the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and on the other extreme the most impulsive behaviors. This is a controversial idea and other authors define the OC spectrum in different ways. The serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene is one of the main genes that control serotonergic function.