Postpartum depression (PPD), with a prevalence of about 10-15% in developed countries, has a major impact on both mother and child. Personality traits, mainly neuroticism, have been associated with affective disorders and in particular postpartum depression.

To examine if neuroticism is associated with depressive symptoms in pregnancy and post-partum, controlling for possible confounding factors.

Since September 2009, all pregnant women in Uppsala, Sweden have been asked to participate in BASIC study, which is a population based, prospective study on mental health during pregnancy and post-partum. Women filled in the Swedish Scales of Personality (SSP), as well as the Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in pregnancy week 32. EPDS was also administered 6 weeks and 6 months postpartum. A factor analysis of SSP traits was conducted in our material and the three factor structure comprising neuroticism, aggressiveness and sensation seeking was confirmed. The association between personality traits and depressive symptoms was examined using binary logistic regression. High levels of neuroticism, aggressiveness and sensation seeking were defined as the highest quartile of each factor.

High levels of neuroticism were strongly associated with depressive symptoms during pregnancy as well as at 6 weeks and 6 months post-partum, while aggressiveness and sensation seeking were not. After controlling for confounding factors, such as previous history of depression, employment, education, partner support and breastfeeding, neuroticism remained a significant predictor for depressive symptoms, at all three time-points.

Neuroticism is an independent strong predictor of depressive symptoms during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Psychoform and somatoform dissociation in anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) is yet to be studied in Portugal.

Explore the severity of psychoform and somatoform dissociation in ED; explore the differences between ED and other psychiatric disorders (PD), and between AN and BN.

From two psychiatric clinics, 29 women with ED (AN = 16; BN = 13) and 35 women with different PD (posttraumatic stress = 9; panic = 4; major depression = 4; obsessive-compulsive = 8, social phobia = 10), matched sociodemographicaly (mean age = 26.69 ± 7.31), were voluntarily assessed with the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), and the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ-20).

ED patients had higher scores on DES (M ± SD= 28.10 ±19.76, p < 0.05) and on SDQ-20 (M ± SD= 38.41 ±13.19, p < 0.05) than PD patients (DES: M ± SD= 19.27 ±12.84; SDQ: M ± SD= 38.41 ±13.19). Comparing with PD, BN had higher scores on DES (M ± SD= 31.13 ±21.25, p < 0.05), and on SDQ-20 (M ± SD= 42.45 ±17.36, p < 0.01). Finally, there were no differences between AN (DES: M ± SD= 25.65 ±18.80; SDQ-20: M ± SD= 35.63 ±8.98) and BN (p = 0.01).

Our findings point out to the need to of watchfully assessing ED for dissociative symptoms and, accordingly, include the treatment of dissociation.

Lack of insight is a major obstacle in treating patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). In everyday practice, clinicians often describe as delusional AN patients who strongly deny their emaciation.

Despite their diagnostic and clinical significance the level of delusionality of body image beliefs in eating disorders (EDs) has not yet been systematically investigated.

In the present study we assessed for the first time the delusionality of body image beliefs in AN subtypes and BN. We hypothesized that body image beliefs would be delusional only in a subgroup of AN patients and that the patients with restrictive AN would demonstrate the higher levels of delusionality.

We used the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS) to assess the degree of delusionality of body image beliefs in seventy-two participants: 39 with AN and 33 with BN. We also investigated the relationship between body image delusionality and other clinical characteristics in AN.

Only patients with anorexia nervosa (28.8%) had delusional body image beliefs, whereas overvalued ideas appeared to be frequent in both AN and BN. Body image delusionality in AN was associated with restrictive eating pathology, early onset of the disorder and body dissatisfaction.

Results suggest that a delusional variant of anorexia nervosa represents the one end of a continuum of insight among patients with eating disorders. Delusionality constitutes a clinical feature independent of weight loss or eating pathology and thus a distinct component of AN psychopathology, contributing to treatment resistance and illness chronicity.

Pragmatic language skills were examined in schizophrenia patients compared to IQ-matched control subjects measured by the decoding of the flouting of the four Gricean maxims.

19 schizophrenic patients and 19 matched controls were evaluated. Five experimental conditions (all included four stories) were used, such as „quantity maxim” (QNM) condition, „quality maxim” (QLM) condition, „relevance maxim” (RM) condition, „manner maxim” (MM) condition and "control” (C) condition. An investigator presented the stories and asked for the hidden communicative intentions. PANSS scores and general intelligence were also measured.

Patients with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than controls in each of the conditions containig the flouting of the Gricean maxims. The response accuracy in the C condition was not differed significantly between the two groups (QNM:p< 0.001; QLM:p< 0.001; RM:p< 0.001; MM:p< 0.001; C:p=0.487). Significant positive correlations were found between QLM and IQ (p< 0.001) and between RM and IQ (p=0.025), and there was no significant correlatios between PANSS scores and response accuracy. Full scale IQ was not differed significantly between the two groups (p=0.095).

We found that a complex pragmatic language deficit exists in schizophrenia. The impairment do not seem to have a relationship with symptom severity. Besides, it seems, that good intellectual function supports pragmatic language skills in schizophrenia.

In Tourette Syndrome (TS), a neuropsychiatric disorder, tics are frequently associated with obsessivecompulsive symptoms that not always fulfill criteria for Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Phenomenological, genetic and epidemiologic studies suggest a strong association between TS and OCD, not only in patients but also in their relatives. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms can be found in 28-63% of TS patients. Motor portions of cortico-striato-thalamic-cortical circuits are implicated in tics and compulsions. Integrating these repetitive behaviors in Obsessive-Compulsive (OC) spectrum, a continuum between Compulsion and Impulsion, OCD tic-free is positioned at the compulsive end and tic-related OCD and ST are positioned between the two poles.

This communication has as main objective to characterize the repetitive behaviors in TS by presenting the differences and similarities with compulsions.

To integrate TS in OC spectrum.

Articles’ selection in PUBMED and SCIENCEDIRECT databases and literature’s review about the theme.

According to clinical features and treatment response, tic-related OCD has an intermediate position between OCD ticfree and TS, sharing common aspects with both entities.

TS may be differenciated from OCD subgroups, namely tic-related OCD, by its clinical features and therapeutic response. The presence of repetitive touching actions and ecophenomena seems to discriminate TS from OCD. The phenomenological characterization of repetitive behaviors in TS is extremely important, as tic and compulsion’s treatment is different.

Research has shown the importance of social support on mental health, however, this investigation has not been done in elder population.

Our aim is to study the relationship between perceived social support, satisfaction with life, anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms.

We collected a sample of 46 institutionalized elderly aged between 65 and 95 years old. We used the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) to assess anxious and depressive symptoms. To assess social support we used the Older Americans Resources and Services Program (OARS), which evaluated the social resources, and to assess the life satisfaction we used the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS).

We found that 91.3% of subjects were illiterate or with low education and only 4 (8.7%) had studied beyond the fourth grade. The elders showed an high average of anxiety and depression symptoms, and dissatisfaction with life. Regarding the perception of social support, the elderly essentially reveal high dissatisfaction with the extent of contact with others and the availability of help. We also found that perceived social support is related with GAI, GDS, and SWLS.

Intervention strategies should involve the integration of elder population in social life.

The lives of patients with mental illness and their families are often not drastically altered by the burden of mental illness only, but also by the stigma and society’s reactions to them.

The objective of this article is to review the causes, magnitude, and consequences of stigma and burden of mental illness, and current successful interventions to overcome stigma and burden, with an emphasis on the role of psychiatric nurses.

A narrative literature review of articles related to stigma and burden of mental illness was conducted.

Overcoming the stigma and burden of mental illness is one of the great challenges facing mental health professionals. Psychiatric nurses can play a crucial role in eliminating stigma and reducing burden of mental illness, so patients with mental illness and their families can live free from discrimination and suffering.

A perceived difficult infant temperament has been associated to mothers depressive mood (Beck, 1996; McGrath et al., 2008).

To identify infant difficult temperament dimensions associated to mothers psychological distress.

103 mothers (M= 31.9 years, SD=4.10; 68% married, 71.7% primiparae) filled in the difficult infant temperament questionnaire (DITQ; Macedo et al., 2011), two items of the Brief infant sleep questionnaire (number of infant night wakings, duration of infants wakefulness during the night; Sadeh, 2004), the Beck depression inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck et al., 1996; Coelho et al., 2002) and the Postpartum depression screening scale (PDSS; Beck and Gable, 2000; Pereira et al., 2010) when their babies were 3 months of age. DITQ factor analysis with varimax rotation and reliability analyses suggested 2 temperament dimensions: emotional difficulties (irritable baby, cries excessively, difficult to calm down), F1; sleeping problems (baby who has sleeping problems, gives bad nights, has difficulties falling asleep), F2.

DITQ-F1, DITQ-F2 and infants number of night wakings were positively and significantly associated with BDIII/ PDSS total scores. Infants eating problems were not associated with BDI-II or PDSS values. Controlling for mothers severe depressive mood, regression analysis revealed that DITQ F2 was the variable that explained BDI-II total score (R2=.081; p=.011). PDSS total score was predicted by DITQ F2 (R2=.050; p=.030) and number of infant night wakings (R2=.074; p=.010).

Infants sleeping problems and infants number of night wakings contribute to mothers psychological distress in postpartum.

AstraZeneca Foundation.

The aim of this research was to verify if there is a difference in dissociation or other psychopathological symptoms between two groups of college students when questioned by two different examiners.

The Dissociative Experiences Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were administered to 185 college students in Coimbra. In one group the examiner was of the same age and academic status, while in the other group the examiner was older and a professor.

The younger examiner’s group scored higher in the Dissociative Experiences Scale and in the Brief Symptom Inventory. There were no differences in the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale.

The examiner does have an influence in the evaluation of psychopathological symptoms amongst college students and this occurs not because of social desirability, but because of cultural and environmental proximity, age and empathy with the examiner.

The results derived from mental health studies with college students should be interpreted cautiously, and who is the examiner should be pointed out.

The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Thai version of the CDSS for the evaluation of depression in patients with schizophrenia.

Sixty patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV-TR were recruited in the study. The Thai version of CDSS, the Mongomery and Asberg Depression Scale (MADRS), the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, 17-item version (HDRS-17), and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) were administered. Major depressive episode diagnosed by a psychiatrist according to the DSM-IV-TR was used as a gold-standard.

The internal consistency of the Thai version of CDSS was very good (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.869). The inter-rater reliability was found to be in substantial agreement with the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.979. The test-retest reliability over a period of three days was high, with the ICC of 0.861. The Thai version of CDSS showed significant correlations with the MADRS (r =0.887), the HDRS-17 (r=0.865) and the PANSS-G6 (r=0.833). The areas under the ROC curves of the CDSS, MADRS, HDRS-17, and PANSS-G6 against the DSM-IV-TR criteria for major depressive episode were 0.993, 0.954, 0.966, and 0.933, respectively. The optimal cut-off scores to discriminate between depressed and nondepressed patients was 6/7, with a sensitivity of 92.31% and specificity of 97.87%.

The Thai version of CDSS is a reliable and valid measure for the evaluation of depression in Thai patients with schizophrenia.

Hypersexuality is a relatively common condition among children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders. It can be related to mental retardation, bipolar disorder, sexual abuse and others. Some studies in old-age psychiatry showed improvement of inappropriate sexual behaviors of demented patients with the use of cimetidine.

We intended to analyze the clinical response to cimetidine, regarding inappropriate sexual behaviors, in children and adolescents of a psychiatric outpatient service.

To show that cimetidine can be used for treatment of children and adolescents who present hypersexuality symptoms, with good outcomes and reasonable prices.

We analyzed the medical records of 11 individuals (12-20 years-old), from the outpatient psychiatric service for children and adolescents of the Campinas State University's Clinical Hospital, who were prescribed cimetidine due to inappropriate sexual behaviors. We evaluated the clinical response, socio-demographic profiles, associated disorders, and use of other medications.

We found that 7 patients had a significant improvement in inappropriate sexual behaviors after starting cimetidine, with some periods of absence of symptoms. Other 3 patients had a partial response. Only one had no response to cimetidine, which was discontinued.

This study suggests that cimetidine can be a possible pharmacological alternative for the treatment of hypersexuality in children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders.