Threat-sensitivity in affective disorders: A case-control study.

Background: Anxiety disorders are highly comorbid with major depression but differ in their symptom profiles and pharmacological responses. Threat-sensitivity may explain such differences, yet research on its relationship to specific disorders is lacking.

Methods: One-hundred patients (71 women) and 35 healthy controls (23 women) were recruited.

Update on structured pain assessment for the documentation of diagnosis-independent symptoms and signs associated with pain.

Concerning the diagnosis and therapy of pain syndromes, standardized descriptions similar to those used in the examination of psychopathological findings via the system produced by the AMDP ("Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Methodik und Dokumentation in der Psychiatrie", i. e., the working group establishing standardized methodology and documentation within psychiatry) are still lacking.

[The AMDS system for the documentation of symptoms and signs associated with pain].

The authors present a system for nomenclature and documentation of symptoms and signs associated with pain. The system was compiled in a staged process by the study group for methods and documentation of pain-associated symptoms and signs (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Methodik und Dokumentation von Schmerzbefunden [AMDS]). The suggested items were elaborated from terms used in current national and international guidelines and classifications and in part integrated into superordinate terms.

Impact of chronic somatoform and osteoarthritis pain on conscious and preconscious cognitive processing.

Unlabelled: The study investigates the impact of chronic pain (CP) on conscious and preconscious cognitive processes and on guessing behavior and examines the mediating effect of a depressive state. Twenty-eight patients with CP due to hip osteoarthritis, 32 patients with a somatoform disorder including pain symptoms, and 31 participants who did not have CP were examined within the framework of a modified process-dissociation-paradigm. Neutral, health-threatening, and general threatening stimuli were presented acoustically in a lexical decision task.