As COVID-19 began to plague the world, the term ‘social distancing’ was frequently used, encouraging people to keep a safe physical distance from others to reduce the transmission of the virus. Despite being well-intended, the term has negative implications, further isolating vulnerable groups in society by evoking feelings of rejection and exclusion. For this reason, the members of the European Psychiatric Association Ethics Committee wrote an e-letter in response to an opinion piece published by Science (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6484/1282/tab-e-letters), and also wrote to the European Psychiatry (https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.60) and the World Health Organisation explaining why the term ‘physical distancing’ should instead be used among policymakers, governments and the general public. Words are important and carry great meaning. Therefore, by using the term physical distancing and not social distancing the message becomes clear, individuals should remain physically distant but socially connected to protect the vulnerable communities in societies. The World Health Organisation, as well as the Lancet journals, adopting the term physical distancing in replacement of social distancing, was a rewarding and important step in the right direction.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the related containment measures, such as lockdown, are affecting mental health of the general population worldwide. This is an unprecedented event, which is influencing the health care, political, economic, and social welfare systems. Among Western countries, Italy has been one of the first severely hit by the pandemic in terms of number of cases and mortality rates. On March 8, 2020, the Italian Prime Minister issued restrictive measures in order to limit the spread of the disease. During this period known as “Phase one” of the national health emergency, all not necessary activities have been closed, more than 29,000 people have died and almost 100,000 people have been home-isolated, with strict lockdown measures. The COvid Mental hEalth Trial (COMET) network, including ten university Italian sites and the National Institute of Health, has promoted a national online survey in order to evaluate the impact of lockdown measures on the mental health of the Italian general population. The COMET survey reports data from a large sample of more than 20.000 people from Italian general population, showing that lockdown has had a detrimental impact on mental health, in terms of worsening of anxiety, depressive and stress symptoms. Findings from this study can be useful to inform national and international associations, policy makers and stakeholders on the importance to provide adequate support to the mental health of the general population.

Taken as a whole, psychiatric disorders are considered as complex genetic disorders. There are clear genetic mutations and susceptibility factors to these disorders. However, these form the full spectrum of impact, frequency, and mutation type. With rare large scale chromosomal rearrangements and copy number mutations of high impact at one end, and common single nucleotide variations of minor impact at the other. This multitude of variation type also means that different epidemiological study designs are needed to test the genetic component of these disorders, from familial forms, to common population level studies. This process has been facilitated by advances in genomic analysis, that enable the measuring of genetic variation at a greater depth in a greater number of individuals and has led to a boom in genetic information. This has given us a greater understanding of the genetic aetiology of psychiatric disorders and how they are biologically related to each other. How this information can be translated to the clinics, can now be considered. Genetic testing in psychiatric disorders, is currently possible for certain disorders and mutation types, but is not universally advised. Much still remains to be understood about population level genetic risk factors before they could conceivably be utilised in the clinic. Whereas genetic testing of high impact mutations could be of use to the clinical programs, and are actively tested for in clinics across Europe.

The understanding of the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders has made significant advances in the last decade and some scientific findings can now be translated into clinical practice. The rise of genetic testing and the awareness of patients and their families motivate psychiatrists to examine this approach. The COST Action EnGagE (CA17130) is promoting these developments in Europe. Whereas the findings of common variants are the domain of research, screening for rare variants at the genome-wide level is already applicable in clinical practice. It is now possible to return meaningful results to the individual to help him/her understanding the disease and the comorbidities, to guide treatment and to perform genetic counseling. In this presentation, we will give meaningful examples for psychiatric practice. For instance, around one-third of the patients diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder can benefit from a molecular diagnosis (fragile X syndrome, SHANK3 deletion…). Microdeletion or microduplication may explain a fraction of schizophrenic cases (e.g. del22q11). Identification of rare variants causing the disease may decrease the stigma and feeling of guilt often reported by patients and families. This could also help to detect and manage other comorbidities. It is expected that treatment guidelines and clinical trials would be developed in the near future for patients carrying a rare variant, opening the way to personalized psychiatry. Finally, this effort has a huge impact on the family, by enhancing genetic counseling in psychiatry. The rise of psychiatric genetics might align our field more closely with the other medical specialties.

Genetic testing is well established in many areas of clinical medicine, is increasingly used in clinical psychiatry and it becomes increasingly important to understand the scope and limitations of the different genetic tests applied. The recommended genetic work-up of patients with neurodevelopmental disorders (such as intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorders) includes conventional karyotyping (low resolution) able to detect chromosomal rearrangement and structural variants (>5Mb, 5 million-bp), testing for fragile X-Syndrome, screening for deletions and duplications down to 20 Kb by Comparative Genomic Hybridisation (CGH), able to detect Copy Number Variation (CNVs; gain or loss of genetic material compared to the reference genome). Sanger sequencing is used for mapping of single base pair genetic variants in single genes but unable to identify deletions or duplications. The more advanced Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) have enabled to detect variants in panels of 10-100 (or more) genes, or in all coding regions using Whole Exome Sequencing (WES; 23.000 genes). Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) analysis enables also the detection of all size range and types of genetic variation including CNVs, trinucleotide repeats and translocations. All this led to an impressive change in interpreting genomic variants that need to be strictly linked to clinical information before it can be used by clinicians to improve diagnosis or care. Bioinformatic tools to annotate variants, predict their effects and select the genes and genomic regions of interest are needed to guide the clinical work followed with careful evaluation of the prioritized variants based on the clinical knowledge (https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA17130/#tabs|Name:overview).

Genetic counselling has been defined as the process of helping people “understand and adapt to medical, psychosocial, and familial aspects of genetic conditions.” It can also help patients and families deal with stigma and understand the significance of possible genetic findings. Psychiatric genetic counselling (PGC) is an emerging field aimed to help people with a personal or family history of psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or neuropsychiatric conditions, to understand genetic etiological mechanisms as a critical component. Counselling strategies are used to identify and adapt to psychological and familial consequences of the conditions and to reduce stigma surrounding the psychiatric illness. A recent survey showed that PGC is still not routinely offered and usually only discussed at the initiative of the patient, e.g. if they ask about the possibility of “hereditary" illness, or if a caregiver during a session for another indication, identifies the family history. If a monogenetic or chromosomal cause is identified, the genetic counselling follows a more traditional path, but if, on the other hand, the cause is complex, the counselling will not be as clearcut. It will then focus on explaining risk for disease with quite uncertain riskscores as no causative genetic change is identified. Although genetic testing most often cannot be offered and individual risk scores based on genetic markers cannot be given, there is still great value for patients and their relatives in PGC. Studies have shown that the effect of PGC is an increase of empowerment and a reduction of stigma.

Negative symptoms are considered a core feature of schizophrenia. They are present since the prodromal phase and tend to persist more than other psychopathological dimensions in the chronic stages. The domain of apathy has attracted research efforts for the strong association with poor functional outcome. This negative symptom domain is observed in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders and might have both overlapping and distinct pathophysiological mechanisms. In schizophrenia it can be secondary to other aspects of the disorder, such as positive symptoms and depression, to drug side effects and/or social isolation, often observed in affected subjects. When primary to schizophrenia, apathy is conceptualized in terms of a reduction of the voluntary activity due to a lack of interest and motivation for goal-directed behavior initiation and persistence. In a percentage of subjects, apathy tend to persist and do not respond to available pharmacological and psychosocial treatments. The assessment of this domain in patients with schizophrenia using internationally recognized criteria for its definition, as were recently developed in other neuropsychiatric disorders, might help disentangle the different pathophysiological mechanisms. In the presentation, studies of apathy in schizophrenia will be illustrated to highlight the relationships with cognitive dysfunction, other psychopathological dimensions and functional outcome using state of the art instruments to assess the construct in schizophrenia.

Apathy is a quantitive reduction of goal-directed activity either in behavioural, cognitive, emotional or social dimension in comparison to the person’s previous level of functioning in these areas. Apathy is prevalent across many neurodegenerative, neurological, and psychiatric disorders. It represents the most common behavioural and psychological symptom in people with Alzheimer’s Disease and is often observed in Parkinson’s disease, vascular dementia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease, frontotemporal dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, major depression, and schizophrenia. However, the definition and terminology employed to refer to apathy can vary in the context of different conditions and specialities and the diagnostic criteria have evolved. Additionally, the term apathy is employed to describe both a symptom and a syndrome. Indeed, little progress has been achieved in assessing the validity of the same construct across different disorders (eg. neurodegenerative disorders, schizophrenia or affective disorders). In 2018, a new version of the diagnostic criteria for apathy (DCA) in neuropsychiatric disorders was published. The validity of this new consensus has yet to be assessed among all relevant populations, including schizophrenia. Six European centres (Naples, Geneve, Nice, Rennes, Barcelona, Cambridge) aimed to test the prevalence of apathy, measured with the 2018 DCA, in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. As a second aim, we focused on the relationship between DCA and other measures of apathy and negative symptoms in schizophrenia (BNSS and PANSS). In this talk, we will compare the preliminary findings of this pan-European study in schizophrenia patients with previous studies on neurodegenerative disorders.

Apathy occurs in many neuropsychiatric disorders and is a central negative symptom of schizophrenia. Apathy has severe functional consequences for patients with schizophrenia and the development of evidence-based treatments is a major challenge. There is now increasing evidence that dysfunctions in reward processing underly apathy, in particular regarding reward anticipation, cost-benefit computation and reward learning. In addition, metacognitive processes such as defeatist performance beliefs modulate reward processing. Psychological interventions for negative symptoms target these processes. While the evidence for cognitive-behavioral therapy for negative symptoms remains limited, recent findings suggest that specifically targeting reward-related dysfunctions may improve efficacy of these interventions. On the neurobiological level, there is now considerable evidence that a dysregulation of the dopaminergic reward system is related to reward processing dysfunctions. Regarding pharmacological treatment approaches, psychostimulants have successfully been used for apathy in dementia to target the reward system. Pro-dopaminergic drugs to target apathy in schizophrenia seem to be safer than anticipated, but their efficacy remains to be established. At the current state of knowledge, there is no evidence-based treatment that specifically targets apathy in patients with schizophrenia today. However, there are encouraging results from research inspired by basic research in neuroscience and clinical research in patients with other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Media coverage of suicidal behaviour can induce copycat suicides. This has been clearly confirmed by analysis of suicides following the huge media coverage of the railway suicide of the German national goal keeper in 2009. A socalled ‘Werther effect’ was not only visible in Germany, but also in neighbouring countries (1). Even more disturbing is the fact that these effects were not only short-lived, but a higher number of railway suicides was observed compared to baseline over a two year period (2). Increased cognitive availability of railway suicides might explain this finding. It adds to the important discussion concerning the risks and benefits of public antisuicidal campaigns. Destigmatisaton and normalisation of suicidal behaviour will on the one hand, facilitate helpseeking behaviour of people at risk, but on the other hand, will lower the threshold for committing suicide. Even when the wording within a antisuicide campaign is in line with recomendations of media guidelines, secondary reporting e.g. within social media will not be controllable. Social media are likely to contribute to the spreading and the choice of more lethal suicide methods, as has been shown for carbon monoxide poisoning and poisoning by other gasses (3). An increase of knowledge about and access to more lethal poisoning methods will have a major impact on suicide rates. 1) KOBURGER et al (2015), J Affect Disord 185:38-46 2) HEGERL et al (2013), J Affect Disord. 146: 39-44. 3) PAUL et al (2017), PLoS One 12: e0190136.

Introduction:

Nationally and internationally, there is a gap between the need and availability of child mental health services. This gap stems from a lack of trained specialists, workforce misdistribution, variations in insurance and financing, and family concerns about the benefits of existing services. Of the possible solutions to these problems, expansion of the child mental health capacity of primary care providers (PCPs) has been proposed as a feasible and scalable approach. The Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model was originally conceived and executed by Dr. Sanjeev Arora at the University of New Mexico for Hepatitis C. It serves to de-monopolize medical expertise by extending knowledge from specialists to PCPs

Data worldwide is pointing towards an increased mortality of men a from COVID-19, while infection rates are equal or higher in women. Immunological differences might play a role in this as well as differences in risk factors and co-morbidities. In addition, differences in exposure, testing, case definitions and access to healthcare might play a role. Differences in symptoms have been reported, as well as potential differences in therapeutic choices. Also, the phenomenon of “long COVID” with all its psychophysical consequences appears to be more common in women. In addition to the consequences of the acute infection, COVID-19 is significantly impacting economies, social systems and political priorities. I will try to give a general overview of the current situation, starting from a medical standpoint and moving into the wider social consequences of this pandemic. I will highlight how the lack of attention to sex and gender can impact statistics, potential therapies and vaccines, livelihoods and the healthcare sector as a whole.

From the beginning of the pandemic, pregnant or postpartum women were considered particularly vulnerable. In France, the vast majority of joint care for parents and infants facilities have seen their services closed or the number of people cared for greatly reduced to allow for social distancing to be respected. This notion of social distancing is the antithesis of joint care work, the main objective of which is to support and care for the parent-infant bond by favoring social links Services have had to take ownership of this new situation within a few days and develop new approaches, inventing ways of supporting and linking up at a distance. This presentation will deal in detail with these changes and the solutions proposed, especially kind of home hospitalisations based on discussion groups, the development of programmes to support remote interactions, and also the development of work with fathers, who have been much more present than they usually are, due to the generalisation of teleworking.

Brain research in Europe is a rapidly evolving field, and increasingly at the forefront of science. Although considerable amounts of knowledge and innovative approaches have been generated, the translation into new health interventions is hindered by excessive fragmentation. Effective and efficient collaboration and cooperation among the various initiatives are often identified as a key success factor to achieve brain research full impact. EBRA fully responds to these needs by bringing together the various stakeholders and major brain research initiatives, at European level and beyond. EBRA creates the conditions for real and effective cross fertilisation, dialogue, building consensus and exploiting research potential. On the operational level, EBRA facilitates the emergence of research projects in specific areas in active clusters. A cluster is understood as a research community that can be directed towards basic research, clinical research and/or methodological approaches under a common topic and disease area within brain research. EBRA support clusters to: 1. Consolidate or expand further the research community expand their community, 2. Engage with policy makers and other relevant stakeholders, 3. Build consensus on various issues (research priorities, research roadmap, data sharing, etc.), 4. Promote links with existing research infrastructures, 5. Increase the visibility of the research community through communication and dissemination activities, 6. Coordinate the development of position/consensus papers, white papers, guidelines, meeting reports and/or other cluster outcomes. EBRA currently has 6 existing clusters: EPICLUSTER, Prevention of Severe Mental Disorders (PSMD)-cluster, TRISOMY21-cluster, BRAINFOOD-cluster., PREMOS-cluster and ECIB-cluster.

Brainfood cluster The mission of EBRA brainfood is to increase awareness of the importance of research exploring the bidirectional links between brain health and nutrition, including the mediating systems, and to use this knowledge to identify novel nutritional, neuropsychological and neuropharmacological intervention strategies. The BRAINFOOD cluster builds new bridges across research disciplines and strengthens links to relevant stakeholders across Europe, including those involved in health and food policy. It gathers experts on brain health and nutrition that by combining and integrating strengths and complimentary expertise has the volume and capacity to develop novel intervention strategies that improve brain health of European citizens, working together with public health and the food industry. BRAINFOOD is built upon an existing network that includes: 1 Discovery, with expertise in human genetics, metabolomics, nutrition, the microbiome and brain health that utilizes existing data from a variety of population and disease cohorts across the lifespan and aims to propose testable hypotheses; 2 Mechanism, with expertise in animal models, metabolomics, the microbiome and neuroscience that tests hypothesis of how the microbiome and nutrients impact on performance in different behavioral domains; 3 Experimental medicine, with expertise in psychiatry, neurology and nutrition with capacity to run randomized controlled trials; 4 Implementation, with expertise in dissemination and policy making and behavior change, to ensure that EU citizens benefit from novel insights gained in the project.

Brain research in Europe is a rapidly evolving field, and increasingly at the forefront of science. Although considerable amounts of knowledge and innovative approaches have been generated, the translation into new health interventions is hindered by excessive fragmentation. Effective and efficient collaboration and cooperation among the various initiatives are often identified as a key success factor to achieve brain research full impact. EBRA fully responds to these needs by bringing together the various stakeholders and major brain research initiatives, at European level and beyond. EBRA creates the conditions for real and effective cross fertilisation, dialogue, building consensus and exploiting research potential. At the strategic level, EBRA acts by fostering alignment and better coordination of research strategies across European and global brain initiatives. Therefore, an overview of the scale and scope of brain research activities funded in the EU framework programme and the funding initiatives of JPND, NEURON and HBP has been created. The results of the mapping exercise then underpinned the development of a Shared European Brain Research Agenda (SEBRA). The SEBRA focuses on research opportunities and research gaps to be addressed in the field, and priorities for action in the short- and long-term. It integrates pre-existing documents as well as expert (i.e., researchers, neurologists/psychiatrists, patient representatives) input that has been collected through surveys and in a dedicated expert workshop. The SEBRA will be used to provide recommendations on future areas for excellent, innovative, and translational research comprising those for maximized cooperation, reduced overlap, and fragmentation.

Clinicians working in every field of psychiatry will likely encounter patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) on a regular basis. Nevertheless, diagnostic assessment and disclosure in patients suspected to suffer from BPD can be difficult and even uncomfortable to many clinicians. In a survey among psychiatrists, 57% indicated they had failed to disclose a diagnosis of BPD at some point in their careers, citing diagnostic uncertainty and concerns about stigma as key issues.1This workshop will engage the audience in an intensive discussion of when and how to disclose a suspected diagnosis of BPD to a patient, and how to involve the patient in the diagnostic process. Dr. De Picker will demonstrate how BPD diagnostic disclosure can become a key intervention in every psychiatric setting by using a two-step process. The first step involves a review of the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria together with the patient. This is always followed by a narrative explanation using either the interpersonal hypersensitivity model or emotional vulnerability model as trait factor. With these two steps, diagnostic disclosure creates both an important validating experience for the patient and a not to be missed opportunity for psycho-education about the heritability, prognosis and treatability of borderline personality disorder which installs hope, trust and confidence. References: 1. Sisti D, Segal AG, Siegel AM, Johnson R, Gunderson J. Diagnosing, disclosing, and documenting borderline personality disorder: a survey of psychiatrists’ practices. J Pers Disord 2016; 30: 848–56.