Alterations in resting-state EEG functional connectivity in patients with major depressive disorder receiving electroconvulsive therapy: A systematic review.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is highly efficacious for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), but its mechanisms still require clarification. Even though depression is associated with alterations in functional connectivity (FC), EEG studies investigating effects of ECT on FC have not been systematically reviewed. Understanding these effects may help to identify the role of functional brain circuits in depression and its remission.

Utilization of Psychiatric Hospital Services Following Intensive Home Treatment: A Nonrandomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Home treatment (HT) has been associated with fewer inpatient treatment (IT) readmission days but lacks evidence on reducing combined psychiatric hospital service use (IT, HT, day clinic).

Objective: To assess the association of intensive home treatment (IHT) compared with IT regarding readmission rate, social outcomes, and clinical outcomes.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This quasi-experimental, nonrandomized trial was conducted from 2020 to 2022 in 10 psychiatric hospitals in Germany.

Shared decision-making in post-coercion debriefing interventions in psychiatry - a scoping review.

Introduction: Debriefing is recommended after any coercive measure in psychiatry, but there are no wellestablished standards, and ist effectiveness remains unclear. Incorporating shared decision-making (SDM) into post-coercion debriefing interventions has potentially beneficial effects.

Methods: This scoping review provides an overview of the general characteristics of such interventions and the extent to which SDM elements are already used in such interventions.

Ethical concerns in caring for persons with anorexia nervosa: content analysis of a series of documentations from ethics consultations.

Background: Caring for patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with high levels of moral distress among healthcare professionals. The main moral conflict has been posited to be between applying coercion to prevent serious complications such as premature death and accepting treatment refusals. However, empirical evidence on this topic is scarce.

Individualized pretest risk estimates to guide treatment decisions in patients with clinical high risk for psychotic disorders.

Introduction: Clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) states are associated with an increased risk of transition to psychosis. However, the predictive value of CHR screening interviews is dependent on pretest risk enrichment in referred patients. This poses a major obstacle to CHR outreach campaigns since they invariably lead to risk dilution through enhanced awareness.

Overestimating prevalence? Rethinking boundaries and confounders of moral distress.

Moral distress denotes a negative reaction to a morally challenging situation. It has been associated with adverse outcomes for healthcare professionals, patients and healthcare institutions. We argue that existing definitions, along with measures of moral distress, compromise the validity of empirical research.

Palliative psychiatry: research, clinical, and educational priorities.

Background: Palliative psychiatry has been proposed as a new clinical construct within mental health care and aims to improve quality of life (QoL) for individuals experiencing severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). To date, explorations of palliative psychiatry have been largely theoretical, and more work is needed to develop its approaches into tangible clinical practice.

Methods: In this paper, we synthesize existing literature with discussions held at a one-day knowledge user meeting titled "A Community of Practice for Palliative Psychiatry" to generate priorities for research, clinical practice, and education that will help advance the development of palliative psychiatry.

Scoping review of end-of-life care for persons with anorexia nervosa.

Background: End-of-life (EOL) care is the part of palliative care intended for persons nearing death. In anorexia nervosa (AN), providing EOL care instead of coercing life-sustaining measures is controversial. The existing literature has not been synthesized yet.

Comparing attitudes towards compulsory interventions in severe and persistent mental illness among psychiatrists in India and Switzerland.

Background: Psychiatrists face a major ethical challenge when deciding whether to make use of coercive measures in the treatment process of patients suffering from severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). As India and Switzerland show major cultural, political and financial differences, it is hypothesized that attitudes towards coercive measures among Indian and Swiss psychiatrists will vary too. Exploring differences in attitudes between cultures strengthens the critical reflection on one's own stances and in consequence, on our way of action.

Palliative psychiatry for a patient with treatment-refractory schizophrenia and severe chronic malignant catatonia: case report.

Background: Palliative psychiatry is an emerging field that suggests a role for palliative interventions in the management of severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). Current literature describes using a palliative approach for patients with severe anorexia nervosa. To our knowledge, this is the first case report describing end-of-life care in a patient with treatment-refractory catatonic schizophrenia.

Capacity to consent to psychotherapy: Reliability of the newly adapted German version of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment for psychotherapy.

Background: Patients' capacity to consent to treatment (CCT) is a prerequisite for ethically sound informed consent in psychotherapy. The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) is a reliable instrument for assessing CCT. A German version was adapted to the psychotherapeutical context (MacCAT-PT) to investigate its reliability and possible influences of age, education and prior experience with psychotherapy on CCT in a mixed clinical sample.

A prospective pilot study of a gluten-free diet for primary sclerosing cholangitis and associated colitis.

Background: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a progressive bile duct disease associated with inflammatory bowel disease (PSC-IBD).

Aim: To investigate whether patients with PSC-IBD benefit from a gluten-free and amylase trypsin inhibitor (ATI)-free diet (GFD).

Methods: We performed a prospective clinical pilot study administering an eight-week GFD.

Somatization and Somatic Symptom Disorder and its overlap with dimensionally measured personality pathology: A systematic review.

Objective: Difficulties in the assessments of Somatoform Disorders (SD) and Personality Disorders (PD) regarding operationalization, arbitrary thresholds, and reliability led to a shift from categorical to dimensional models in the DSM-5. Empirical research data postulates a continuous level of severity in both groups of diseases. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the overlap between somatization and personality pathology.

EEG Microstate Differences in Medicated vs. Medication-Naïve First-Episode Psychosis Patients.

There has been considerable interest in the role of synchronous brain activity abnormalities in the pathophysiology of psychotic disorders and their relevance for treatment; one index of such activity are EEG resting-state microstates. These reflect electric field configurations of the brain that persist over 60-120 ms time periods. A set of quasi-stable microstates classes A, B, C, and D have been repeatedly identified across healthy participants.

A Two-Day Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Workshop Increases Presence and Work Functioning in Healthcare Workers.

Background: In this controlled naturalistic study performed in healthcare workers we examined the effect of a two-day acceptance commitment therapy (ACT) workshop on work presence and productivity, i.e. the influence the workshop had on treatment efficacy in a routine hospital care setting.

EEG microstates as biomarker for psychosis in ultra-high-risk patients.

Resting-state EEG microstates are brief (50-100 ms) periods, in which the spatial configuration of scalp global field power remains quasi-stable before rapidly shifting to another configuration. Changes in microstate parameters have been described in patients with psychotic disorders. These changes have also been observed in individuals with a clinical or genetic high risk, suggesting potential usefulness of EEG microstates as a biomarker for psychotic disorders.