RecA mediated spontaneous deletions of the icaADBC operon of clinical Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates: a new mechanism of phenotypic variations.

Phenotypic variation in biofilm formation is common in clinical isolates of S. epidermidis. In the current study, nearly 5% of all clinical isolates analysed showed phenotypic variation in biofilm forming ability and electrophoretic mobility (EM).

Hannover study on long-stay hospitalization - part I: prediction of long-stay hospitalisation in cases of chronic mental illness.

Background: The problem of long-stay hospitalization is still a pressing issue. In this study we examined the possibility of detecting and characterising the group at risk of long-stay hospitalization in advance.

Methods: This study examines the data of patients in the urban catchment area of the Medical University of Hannover, capital of Lower Saxony, Germany, during a period of 10 years.

[Viewpoint of family: the black hole in the social psychiatric system].

The following review concludes the authors experience of a 6 year consultation with the parents of a 28 year old daughter with a schizophrenic psychosis. The self-sacrificing experiences of the parents are reported as well as the experiences with a well developed system of psychiatric care with several professionals, whose work remains without success because of insufficient coordination. The author asks for a conference of all involved persons, to nominate a responsible therapeutic key-worker to coordinate the different psychiatric care in the future.

[Coercive measures in psychiatry. Restraint on psychiatric units of the Hannover Medical University].

Following a short review of some studies from Germany and Switzerland on coercive measures in psychiatry a retrospective investigation of restraints in the two psychiatric departments of the Medical School of Hannover is presented. Frequency, time, diagnoses, reasons and procedures are reported in detail and discussed in comparison with results of other studies.

[Sociopsychiatric additional training at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover (author's transl)].

The development of sociopsychiatric additional training (abbreviated SPZA in the German text) is closely connected with the development of the psychiatric hospital of the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover (MHH) from a level of psychiatric keeping aloof from everyday problems arising in a community, towards a type of medical care which remains close to community problems by paying attention to all the sectors that go into creating abnormal patterns in a community. The most important and still unsolved problems of the future are represented by the alternative of a jobspecific or comprehensive continuing education across the boundaries set by individual groups of professions (at present, SPZA is intended to look after several non-academic groups of professions) and are also represented by the alternative of continuing education bound to one institution or on a regional basis comprising several institutions. It is the aim of SPZA to create a therapeutically favourable environment and to establish therapeutic relationships in psychiatry, i.