Childhood Anxiety Symptoms as a Predictor of Psychotic Experiences in Adolescence in a High-Risk Cohort for Psychiatric Disorders.

Background And Hypothesis: When occurring in adolescence, psychotic experiences (PE), subclinical psychotic symptoms, can be an early marker of mental illnesses. Studies with high-risk populations for psychosis show that anxiety symptoms often precede the onset of psychosis. Although anxiety symptoms are frequently experienced across the continuum of psychosis, no previous study has analyzed this association using a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) longitudinally to identify if anxiety can be a predictor of PE over time or vice versa.

Cost-effectiveness of early intervention in psychosis in low- and middle-income countries: economic evaluation from São Paulo, Brazil.

Aims: The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of early intervention for psychosis (EIP) services are well established in high-income countries but not in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite the scarcity of local evidence, several EIP services have been implemented in LMICs. Local evaluations are warranted before adopting speciality models of care in LMICs.

Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men.

Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women's worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries.

Longitudinal invariance of psychotic experiences in children and adolescents: What do the data tell us?

Background: Psychotic experiences are common in adults, adolescents, and children. While usually self-limited, they can indicate psychosis proneness when persistent. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) measures lifetime psychotic experiences in three dimensions.

The enduring gap in educational attainment in schizophrenia according to the past 50 years of published research: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Educational attainment is associated with wellbeing and health, but patients with schizophrenia achieve lower levels of education than people without. Several effective interventions can ameliorate this situation. However, the magnitude of the education gap in schizophrenia and its change over time are unclear.

Gender, age and geographical representation over the past 50 years of schizophrenia research.

Previous studies have suggested that subjects participating in schizophrenia research are not representative of the demographics of the global population of people with schizophrenia, particularly in terms of gender and geographical location. We here explored if this has evolved throughout the decades, examining changes in geographical location, gender and age of participants in studies of schizophrenia published in the last 50 years. We examined this using a meta-analytical approach on an existing database including over 3,000 studies collated for another project.

The Impact of Mental Illness Stigma on Psychiatric Emergencies.

Psychiatric emergencies are severe behavioral changes secondary to worsening mental illness. Such situations present a risk to the patient and other people, so they need immediate therapeutic intervention. They are associated with feelings of fear, anger, prejudice, and even exclusion.

Impact of duration of untreated psychosis in short-term response to treatment and outcome in antipsychotic naïve first-episode psychosis.

Aim: Duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is one of the few potentially modifiable outcome predictors in psychosis. Previous studies have associated a longer DUP with a poor prognosis, but few of them were performed in countries with low and middle level of income. This study aimed to investigate the DUP in a Brazilian sample of antipsychotic-naïve first-episode psychosis (AN-FEP) patients and its association with clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes in a short-term follow-up.

Cannabis acute use impacts symptoms and functionality in a cohort of antipsychotic naïve First Episode of Psychosis individuals.

Introduction: Cannabis use increases the risk of developing psychosis, and subjects with psychosis are more likely to use cannabis. However, studies on the influence of cannabis on psychotic dimensions, response to treatment, and functional outcomes showed conflicting results. Such heterogeneity may be due the inclusion of patients who were already under treatment, and lack of specificity in evaluations.

Factor structure of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) in Brazil: convergent validation of the Brazilian version.

Objectives: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was developed to assess the symptoms of schizophrenia dimensionally. Although it is widely used in clinical trials in Brazil, it is not fully validated. The aim of this study is to assess the factor structure of the Brazilian PANSS and generate validation data for its current version.