Therapeutic Landscapes and Psychiatric Care Facilities: A Qualitative Meta-Analysis.

The environment in healthcare facilities can influence health and recovery of service users and furthermore contribute to healthy workplaces for staff. The concept of therapeutic landscapes seems to be a promising approach in this context. The aim of this qualitative meta-analysis is to review the effects of therapeutic landscapes for different stakeholders in psychiatric care facilities.

A new electronically based clinical pathway for schizophrenia inpatients: A longitudinal pilot study.

Patients with schizophrenia, a severe chronic disorder, are characterized by resistance to therapy, lack of disease understanding, non-compliance and non-adherence, partly caused and maintained by an often poorly structured treatment strategy and polypharmacy. Treatment pathways in the sense of decision aids for professionals bring recommendations from guidelines into a clear and practice-oriented algorithm that can be a helpful tool for treatment. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of a newly developed electronic clinical pathway (CPW) that integrates the standard computerized medical report system on symptomatic outcomes and process parameters in a population of inpatients with schizophrenia.

Evaluation of a Family-Based Intervention Program for Children of Mentally Ill Parents: Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Multicenter Trial.

Children of mentally ill parents have a three to seven times higher risk of developing mental disorders compared to the general population. For this high-risk group, specialized prevention and intervention programs have already been developed. However, there has been insufficient sytematic evaluation to date.

[Recommendations on performing polygraphy or polysomnography in the fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy : Position paper of the working group on sleep medicine of the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics].

Difficulties in falling asleep and maintaining sleep, nonrestorative sleep and decreased daytime wakefulness represent very common but relatively unspecific health complaints. Around 100 specific sleep-related disorders will be classified in their own major chap. 7 (sleep wake disorders) for the first time in the upcoming 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 11).

[Prevalence of sleep-related breathing disorders of inpatients with psychiatric disorders].

Background: Sleep-related breathing disorders seriously impair well-being and increase the risk for relevant somatic and psychiatric disorders. Moreover, risk factors for sleep-related breathing disorders are highly prevalent in psychiatric patients. The aim of this study was for the first time in Germany to study the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) as the most common form of sleep-related breathing disorder in patients with psychiatric disorders.

Serotonergic modulation of orbitofrontal activity and its relevance for decision making and impulsivity.

Background: The orbitofrontal cortex seems to play a crucial role in reward-guided learning and decision making, especially for impulsive choice procedures including delayed reward discounting. The central serotonergic system is closely involved in the regulation of impulsivity, but how the serotonergic firing rate and release, best investigated by the loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP), interact with orbitofrontal activity is still unknown.

Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers (11 males, 9 females, 31.

[Specialist Training in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy : Evaluation of the East Westphalia-Lippe Academy curriculum].

Background: Despite of the undisputed impact of education quality on becoming a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapist, systematic studies in this field do not exist in Germany, apart from the evaluation of practical education by the medical councils.

Materials And Methods: The Akademie-OWL, an education union of psychiatric clinics in the East Westphalia region of Germany, has provided 12-item questionnaire-based routine evaluations of theoretical education seminars since 2009. Seminars are held by consultants of psychiatry and psychotherapy within six separate weeks over a period of four years.

Performance monitoring and empathy during active and observational learning in patients with major depression.

Previous literature established a link between major depressive disorder (MDD) and altered reward processing as well as between empathy and (observational) reward learning. The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of MDD on the electrophysiological correlates - the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P300 - of active and observational reward processing and to relate them to trait cognitive and affective empathy. Eighteen patients with MDD and 16 healthy controls performed an active and an observational probabilistic reward-learning task while event- related potentials were recorded.

Nice or effective? Social problem solving strategies in patients with major depressive disorder.

Our study addressed distinct aspects of social problem solving in 28 hospitalized patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 28 matched healthy controls. Three scenario-based tests assessed the ability to infer the mental states of story characters in difficult interpersonal situations, the capacity to freely generate good strategies for dealing with such situations and the ability to identify the best solutions among less optimal alternatives. Also, standard tests assessing attention, memory, executive function and trait empathy were administered.

Cortisol, platelet serotonin content, and platelet activity in patients with major depression and type 2 diabetes: an exploratory investigation.

Objective: Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system dysfunction, serotonergic system alterations, and enhanced platelet activity may contribute to the increased cardiac risk in depression. This exploratory study examined associations between cortisol parameters, platelet serotonin (5-HT) content, and platelet activity markers in patients with newly diagnosed major depression (MD) and/or Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) compared with healthy controls.

Methods: We compared cortisol awakening response (CAR), diurnal decrease in salivary cortisol concentrations (slope), platelet 5-HT, and platelet markers (CD40, CD40 ligand [CD40L], soluble CD40L, CD62P, β-thromboglobulin, and platelet factor-4) in 22 T2DM patients, 20 MD patients, 18 T2DM patients with MD, and 24 healthy controls.

Influence of levothyroxine in augmentation therapy for bipolar depression on central serotonergic function.

Introduction: Adjunctive treatment with supraphysiological doses of levothyroxine (L-T4) in bipolar depression shows promise, but the neurobiological mechanisms underlying clinical improvement are unknown. It has been postulated from animal studies that exogenous thyroid hormones may exert their modulatory effects in patients with affective disorders via an increase in serotonergic neurotransmission. Therefore, we investigated the loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP) as a measure of central serotonergic activity and response to L-T4.

[Computer-assisted treatment pathway for schizophrenia. Development and initial experiences].

Standardization in psychiatry is a developmental process which, following on from psychopathology and nosology is now increasingly affecting the field of treatment. The development of guidelines for the treatment of psychiatric diseases has now become well accepted, although the impact on routine practice is still limited. Treatment pathways bring recommendations from guidelines into a clear and practice-oriented algorithm.

[German version of the Marcé-Clinical-Checklist as a basic documentation for inpatient mother-and-baby units: evaluation of the MKE Herten data].

Objective: Evaluation of the psychiatric mother-and-child treatment, the goal being to find predictive factors for a positive treatment result.

Methods: Statistical assessment of 166 treatment dyads by using the Marcé-Clinical-Checklist (11/2006-12/2011).

Results: About 90% of (women) patients show a positive success of the treatment.

Do you see what I feel?--Electrophysiological correlates of emotional face and body perception in schizophrenia.

Objective: We aimed to elucidate whether impaired affective face processing--behaviourally and with regard to P100 and N170 components--is paralleled by similar deficits in body processing in schizophrenia. Furthermore, we aimed to assess modulations by the processing of emotional or personal identity of the stimuli.

Methods: Fourteen patients with schizophrenia and 15 healthy controls were assessed with a Delayed Matching-to-Sample Task involving variations of the emotional (same vs.

Adaptive screening for depression--recalibration of an item bank for the assessment of depression in persons with mental and somatic diseases and evaluation in a simulated computer-adaptive test environment.

Objective: This study conducted a simulation study for computer-adaptive testing based on the Aachen Depression Item Bank (ADIB), which was developed for the assessment of depression in persons with somatic diseases. Prior to computer-adaptive test simulation, the ADIB was newly calibrated.

Methods: Recalibration was performed in a sample of 161 patients treated for a depressive syndrome, 103 patients from cardiology, and 103 patients from otorhinolaryngology (mean age 44.

Transcranial sonography in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

There is convergent evidence that basal ganglia structures are involved in the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It has been also assumed that OCD is caused by a central serotonergic dysfunction. Transcranial sonography (TCS) has become a reliable, sensitive and non-invasive diagnostic tool concerning the evaluation of extrapyramidal movement disorders.

Cross-sectional validation of the Rasch-based Depression Screening (DESC) in a mixed sample of patients with mental and somatic diseases.

Background: The study aimed to cross-validate the psychometric properties of the two parallel versions of the "Rasch-based Depression Screening (DESC)" in a mixed clinical sample of patients with mental disorders and somatic diseases. Additionally, it was intended to confirm the initially proposed cut-off scores.

Methods: One hundred eleven inpatients from the Departments of Psychiatry (n=50), Cardiology (n=39) and Otorhinolaryngology (n=22) were examined.

Brainstem raphe alterations depicted by transcranial sonography do not result in serotonergic functional impairment.

In transcranial sonography (TCS), hypoechogenic signal of mesencephalic raphe structures has been described as a frequent finding in unipolar depression. It remains unclear if raphe hypoechogenicity represents a correlate for an altered serotonergic system. The loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP) has been proposed as an indirect indicator of central serotonergic activity.

Depression, psychological distress, and quality of life in patients with cardioverter defibrillator with or without cardiac resynchronization therapy.

Congestive heart failure is frequent and leads to reduced exercise capacity, reduced quality of life (QoL), and depression in many patients. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) offer therapeutic options and may have an impact on QoL and depression. This study was performed to evaluate physical and mental health in patients undergoing ICD or combined CRT/ICD-implantation (CRT-D).