Early intervention programme for patients with psychotic disorders in "Sveti Ivan" Psychiatric hospital (RIPEPP) - sociodemographic and baseline characteristics of the participants.

Background: Psychiatric hospital "Sveti Ivan" in Zagreb, Croatia, offers an outpatient Early intervention programme for patients with psychotic disorders (RIPEPP), consisting of psychoeducational workshops and group psychodynamic psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to describe sociodemographic and baseline characteristics of the participants, in order to provide better understanding of this population, and to assist with the development of more effective therapeutic approaches.

Subjects And Methods: Since 2008, a total of 245 patients with first episodes of psychosis and their family members participated in the programme.

Early intervention program for psychotic disorders at the psychiatric hospital "Sveti Ivan".

The Early intervention program for the first episodes of psychotic disorders (RIPEPP) at the Psychiatric Hospital "Sveti Ivan" in Zagreb encompasses patients hospitalized due to various psychoses (acute psychotic disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective and delusional disorder, bipolar affective disorder with psychotic symptoms) in the "critical period" of illness, i.e. within five years after the occurrence of the first symptoms.

Dementia and legal competency.

The legal competency or capability to exercise rights is level of judgment and decision-making ability needed to manage one's own affairs and to sign official documents. With some exceptions, the person entitles this right in age of majority. It is acquired without legal procedures, however the annulment of legal capacity requires a juristic process.

Association of tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms on 8 candidate genes in dopaminergic pathway with schizophrenia in Croatian population.

Aim: To perform a comprehensive evaluation of association of common genetic variants in candidate genes in the dopaminergic pathway with schizophrenia in a sample from Croatian population.

Methods: A case-control association study was performed on 104 unrelated patients with schizophrenia recruited from a psychiatric hospital in Zagreb and 131 phenotypically normal Croatian subjects. Forty-nine tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tagSNPs) in 8 candidate genes in the dopaminergic pathway were identified from the HapMap database and tested for association.

[Therapists' psychological problems when treating posttraumatic stress disorder].

War experience in interaction with personality structure can have a traumatic effect and provoke various psychopathological responses and even disorders at the psychological level. PTSD is one of the possible psychopathological responses to war trauma, which provokes a range of different emotions in those working with such patients. The heterogeneity of the clinical aspect of the disorder, the comorbidity and social malfunctioning of the patients represent a frequent source of difficulties in the psychiatrist's work.