Effects of an assertive community program in patients with severe mental disorders and impact on their families.

Aims: Assertive community treatment (ACT) is known to have a positive impact on the number and length of inpatient stays. However, recent studies have shown little or no effect of such programs in European settings. This paper aims to describe the impact of a newly implemented ACT program on patients and their families' burden.

Symptoms as mediators of the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis.

Background: Neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia has received considerable attention because of its robust prediction of functional outcome. Psychiatric symptoms, in particular negative symptoms, have also been shown to predict functional outcome, but have garnered much less attention. The high degree of intercorrelation among all of these variables leaves unclear whether neurocognition has a direct effect on functional outcome or whether that relationship to functional outcome is partially mediated by symptoms.

Deficits in neurocognition, theory of mind, and social functioning in patients with schizophrenic disorders: are they related?

In schizophrenic disorders, impairments in social functioning, neurocognition, and theory of mind (ToM) are frequently reported but little is known about the relationships between them. The aim of this study is twofold: (a) to compare neurocognition, social-functioning, and ToM in patients and controls and (b) to investigate whether impairments in these domains are related to psychiatric symptoms. Participants were 16 outpatients with schizophrenic disorders (DSM-IV), and 16 healthy controls.