Antipsychotic medication in adolescents suffering from schizophrenia: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: The aim was to perform a meta-analysis on the efficacy, safety and tolerability of antipsychotic drugs in adolescents aged between 13 and 17 suffering from schizophrenia.

Methods: Enclosed studies - were multicentric, randomized, double-blind clinical trials; - included only adolescents (aged 13-17) with DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia; - used standardized scales to assess efficacy, safety and tolerability of antipsychotics.

Results: All treatments resulted in significant improvements in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) total score (p < 0.

[Autistic dimension in obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescence].

Aim: This study examines the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with normal and poor insight of illness and it detects the presence of autistic traits. The aim is to establish the relationship between OCD and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD): comorbidity or subtype of OCD?

Methods: The sample consists of 48 adolescents (aged 12-18) with a clinical diagnosis of OCD (according DSM-IV-TR). After administering the Children's Yale Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CYBOCS) and the Brown Assessement Beliefs Scale (BABS), the sample is divided into two groups according to insight of illness.

Frontal lobe syndrome or adolescent-onset schizophrenia? A case report.

Objective: To highlight the difficulties that abound in making a clinical distinction between early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) and juvenile frontal dementia early in the course of illness.

Method: Clinical information and data from investigations in single case was collated and reviewed.

Results: A 15-year-old girl was admitted to our psychiatric unit because of cognitive decline and formal thought disorder with echopraxia, echolalia and palilalia, and a lack of flexibility in the use of cognitive and motor strategies that culminated in psychosis.

Follow-up of obese child.

A long-term follow-up which is still being carried out was started in the school-year 1985-86 in a Primary School of Rome and we suggested a written diet of 1300 calories and correct physical exercises. During this long follow-up we studied the changes in percentage of obesity of these subjects, considering their familiarity with obesity. It resulted that after a starting benefit due to the diet and the sport activity, which lasted till 1989, the youngsters with familiarity have subsequently regained the initial situation in 62.

[Short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy in children. Hypothetical model and clinical experiences in late childhood].

This article presents several hypotheses for a conceptual and technical model of short-term psychotherapy applied to a child's emotional problems, which were brought up and discussed at a clinical research workshop at the Institute of Child Neuropsychiatry at the University of Rome. By bringing up the clinical sources the conceptual principals mentioned and the methodology referred to in the principles of short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy defined by D. Malan (1963, 1976), the study faces the problem of variables and non-variables when adapting short-term methods from the adult to the child.