Costs of psychotropics for outpatients with bipolar disorder in Japan; the MUSUBI 2016 survey.

Background: Although the costs of bipolar disorder (BD) treatments are associated with local and universal factors, data from non-Western countries remain limited. The associations between clinical features and costs of outpatient pharmacotherapy have not been well characterize. To estimate the costs of outpatient BD treatments and their associations with clinical features in a Japanese population, we investigated with special reference to the costs of medicines constituted the bulk of the total healthcare expense and were steadily increasing.

Self-administration of gender-affirming hormones and supratherapeutic dosing are relatively common in Japanese transgender women.

Aim: This study was performed to determine the proportion of transgender women with self-adjusted hormone administration and excess dosing.

Methods: The medical records of 87 transgender women who visited our gender clinic from 2010 through 2019 were reviewed. The complete blood count and serum concentrations of D-dimer, gonadotropins, and sex steroids were compared between transgender women who were self-administering gender-affirming hormones and women not using such hormones.

Estimated model of psychotropic polypharmacy for bipolar disorder: Analysis using patients' and practitioners' parameters in the MUSUBI study.

Objective: This study aims to clarify the relevant factors influencing practitioners' methods of prescribing medications for bipolar disorder, in a nation-wide survey in Japan.

Methods: The clinical records of 3130 outpatients with bipolar disorder were consecutively reviewed from 176 psychiatric outpatient clinics. Fifteen parameters, that is, five patients' including five general characteristics (sex, age, education, occupation, and social adjustment), five patients' aspects of mental functioning (onset age, comorbid mental illness, rapid-cycling, psychopathologic severity, and followed-up years), and five practitioners' characteristics (sex, age, specialist experience, clinic standing years, and location), were evaluated.

Whose depression deteriorates during acute phase antidepressant treatment?

Background: Few studies have investigated the proportion of patients with depression who experience worsening of depression symptoms during adequate antidepressant treatment. The current study aimed to investigate the proportion and predictors of worsening depression during antidepressant treatment in a multi-center randomized trial involving patients with major depression.

Methods: We defined the deterioration of depression using depression symptom severity evaluated by total Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) score increases from week 0 to week 9 during acute phase antidepressant treatment.

Prediction of remission in pharmacotherapy of untreated major depression: development and validation of multivariable prediction models.

Background: Depression is increasingly recognized as a chronic and relapsing disorder. However, an important minority of patients who start treatment for their major depressive episode recover to euthymia. It is clinically important to be able to predict such individuals.

Optimising first- and second-line treatment strategies for untreated major depressive disorder - the SUN☺D study: a pragmatic, multi-centre, assessor-blinded randomised controlled trial.

Background: For patients starting treatment for depression, current guidelines recommend titrating the antidepressant dosage to the maximum of the licenced range if tolerated. When patients do not achieve remission within several weeks, recommendations include adding or switching to another antidepressant. However, the relative merits of these guideline strategies remain unestablished.

Prevalence rate of Internet addiction among Japanese college students: Two cross-sectional studies and reconsideration of cut-off points of Young's Internet Addiction Test in Japan.

Aim: Due to variation in estimates of the prevalence of Internet addiction (IA) in prior research, we conducted two cross-sectional studies over 2 years investigating the prevalence rate of IA in college students in Japan and reconsidered appropriate cut-off points of a self-rating scale to screen possible IA.

Methods: This study was composed of two parts: survey I in 2014 and survey II in 2016, which were conducted in the same schools with an interval of 2 years. The study questionnaire included questions about demographics and Internet use, and Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT).

Internet addiction and self-evaluated attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder traits among Japanese college students.

Aim: Internet addiction (IA), also referred to as Internet use disorder, is a serious problem all over the world, especially in Asian countries. Severe IA in students may be linked to academic failure, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and forms of social withdrawal, such as hikikomori. In this study, we performed a survey to investigate the relation between IA and ADHD symptoms among college students.

Strategic use of new generation antidepressants for depression: SUN(^_^) D protocol update and statistical analysis plan.

Background: SUN(^_^)D, the Strategic Use of New generation antidepressants for Depression, is an assessor-blinded, parallel-group, multicenter pragmatic mega-trial to examine the optimum treatment strategy for the first- and second-line treatments for unipolar major depressive episodes. The trial has three steps and two randomizations. Step I randomization compares the minimum and the maximum dosing strategy for the first-line antidepressant.