Differentiating aspects of oral and long-acting injectable antipsychotic drugs for tailoring the therapy of schizophrenia in clinical practice: a narrative review.

Schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric condition requiring continuous treatment with antipsychotic medications available in different formulations, including oral antipsychotics (OAPs) and long-acting injectables (LAIs). This narrative review aims to comprehensively outline the advantages and disadvantages of OAPs and LAIs to support clinicians in choosing different formulations based on the presentation of clinical symptoms. An electronic search of the PubMed database was performed in June 2024, and additional articles were retrieved from the references or personal knowledge of the authors.

Association between previous SARs-CoV-2 infection and new prescription of antidepressant drugs: a case-control study in Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Italy.

Purpose: A rise in affective and anxiety disorders and in antidepressant (AD) treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic has been extensively described, but few studies were provided at the individual level, further considering COVID-19 severity and vaccination status.

Methods: Case-control study evaluating the association between the new use of ADs and a previous COVID-19 infection, in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Italy, from March 1, 2020, to July 19, 2022. Multiple conditional logistic regressions assess the association between a new AD use and a COVID-19 infection previous to the index date, stratified by gender, age and anti-COVID-19 vaccination status.

Consensus Panel Recommendations for the Pharmacological Management of Breastfeeding Women with Postpartum Depression.

Introduction: Our consensus statement aims to clarify the use of antidepressants and anxiolytics during breastfeeding amidst clinical uncertainty. Despite recent studies, potential harm to breastfed newborns from these medications remains a concern, leading to abrupt discontinuation of necessary treatments or exclusive formula feeding, depriving newborns of benefits from mother's milk.

Methods: A panel of 16 experts, representing eight scientific societies with a keen interest in postpartum depression, was convened.

["Insomnia disorder": an overview of current models and of the complex link with psychopathology.].

Insomnia disorder is the most common sleep disorder. The new models frame insomnia as a stress-related disorder and a "24-hour" syndrome with night and day symptoms. The hyperarousal has been identified as the neurobiological mechanism underlying chronic insomnia.

Episodic obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar spectrum disorder: new evidence from a large Italian OCD sample.

Objectives: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has been considered to be a chronic illness; however, some authors described a subtype of OCD characterised by symptom-free periods of time: Episodic-OCD (E-OCD). Only few studies focussed on this subtype of the disorder. The objectives of this research were to study the association between the episodic course of the disorder and lifetime psychiatric comorbidities and to investigate socio-demographic and other clinical features correlated to the episodic course.

Lurasidone in adolescents and adults with schizophrenia: from clinical trials to real-world clinical practice.

Introduction: Lurasidone is an atypical antipsychotic agent approved in the European Union for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults and adolescents (13-17 years). Clinical trials have shown a generally favorable balance between efficacy and tolerability.

Areas Covered: This paper provides a review and commentary regarding the use of lurasidone in adults and adolescents with schizophrenia.

COVID-19 and psychiatric disorders: The impact of face masks in emotion recognition face masks and emotion recognition in psychiatry.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, reading facial expressions has become more complex due to face masks covering the lower part of people's faces. A history of psychiatric illness has been associated with higher rates of complications, hospitalization, and mortality due to COVID-19. Psychiatric patients have well-documented difficulties reading emotions from facial expressions; accordingly, this study assesses how using face masks, such as those worn for preventing COVID-19 transmission, impacts the emotion recognition skills of patients with psychiatric disorders.

Meta-analysis of cognitive behaviour therapy and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for the treatment of hypochondriasis: Implications for trial design.

Background: Classification of hypochondriasis as an obsessive-compulsive and related disorder in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11) has generated new heuristics for treatment of this common, chronic and disabling disorder. Standard treatment involves cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but no meta-analysis has so far considered hypochondriasis as a structured diagnosis or assessed the role of medication. A clearer understanding of the relative effectiveness of these interventions and identification of clinically relevant factors moderating the treatment response is needed for clinical guideline development.

Time in schizophrenia: a link between psychopathology, psychophysics and technology.

It has been widely demonstrated that time processing is altered in patients with schizophrenia. This perspective review delves into such temporal deficit and highlights its link to low-level sensory alterations, which are often overlooked in rehabilitation protocols for psychosis. However, if temporal impairment at the sensory level is inherent to the disease, new interventions should focus on this dimension.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (r-TMS) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor-resistance in obsessive-compulsive disorder: A meta-analysis and clinical implications.

Introduction: Despite promising results from several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses, the efficacy of r-TMS as a treatment for OCD remains controversial, at least in part owing to inconsistency in the trial methodologies and heterogeneity in the trial outcomes. This meta-analysis attempts to explain some of this heterogeneity by comparing the efficacy of r-TMS in patients with or without resistance to treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), defined using standardized criteria.

Methods: We conducted a pre-registered (PROSPERO ID: 241381) systematic review and meta-analysis.

Face masks affect perception of happy faces in deaf people.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led significant social repercussions and forced people to wear face masks. Recent research has demonstrated that the human ability to infer emotions from facial configurations is significantly reduced when face masks are worn. Since the mouth region is specifically crucial for deaf people who speak sign language, the current study assessed the impact of face masks on inferring emotional facial expressions in a population of adult deaf signers.

Assessing response, remission, and treatment resistance in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder with and without tic disorders: results from a multicenter study.

Background: Highlighting the relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and tic disorder (TD), two highly disabling, comorbid, and difficult-to-treat conditions, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) acknowledged a new "tic-related" specifier for OCD, ie, obsessive-compulsive tic-related disorder (OCTD). As patients with OCTD may frequently show poor treatment response, the aim of this multicenter study was to investigate rates and clinical correlates of response, remission, and treatment resistance in a large multicenter sample of OCD patients with versus without tics.

Methods: A sample of 398 patients with a DSM-5 diagnosis of OCD with and without comorbid TD was assessed from 10 different psychiatric departments across Italy.

Pica (Allotriophagy): An Underestimated Risk Factor for Severe Leptospirosis (Weil's Diseases)? Report of a Leptospira Septic Shock Successfully Managed with ECMO.

Leptospirosis is a zoonosis caused by infection with pathogenic strains of the bacterium Leptospira. The disease can be complicated by pulmonary hemorrhages and acute respiratory distress syndrome, with the mortality rate increasing to 51-100%. We report the case of a 37-year-old man who was admitted to the emergency department with a 6-day history of fever, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea, followed by jaundice.

Manic-Depressive Cycles in Bipolar Disorder: Clinical and Treatment Implications.

Introduction: Cycle patterns of bipolar disorders (BDs) have been previously shown to be associated with clinical characteristics and response to lithium salts. Here, we evaluated the distribution of different types of manic-depressive cycles in a large sample of patients with BD. The associations between a mania-depression-interval (MDI) course and depression-mania-interval (DMI) course with sociodemographic/clinical factors were also assessed in order to define specific clinical profiles.

Effect of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Pandemic and Lockdown on Body Weight, Maladaptive Eating Habits, Anxiety, and Depression in a Bariatric Surgery Waiting List Cohort.

Purpose: On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a "public health emergency of international concern." The primary aim of the study was to evaluate weight and food habit changes during COVID-19 outbreak. The secondary endpoint was to explore the psychological factors, arising during the pandemic, influencing weight and dietary variations.

Is orthorexia nervosa a feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder? A multicentric, controlled study.

Purpose: The term orthorexia nervosa (ON) was coined to describe altered thoughts and behaviours related to healthy eating. The prevalence of ON was found to scale up to almost 90% among high-risk populations (ballet dancers, athletes, and health workers). ON seem to share psychopathological aspects with both Eating Disorders (ED) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Functional interventions as augmentation strategies for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): scoping review and expert survey from the international college of obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders (ICOCS).

Background: Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) commonly exhibit a range of functional difficulties, presumed linked to neurocognitive changes. Evidence-based first-line treatments have limited effect on improving these cognitive-functional problems. Candidate interventions could be used to augment evidence-based treatments by the multi-professional mental health team.