Both suicide and homicide rates rose in nations formed after the formal break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Homicide rates, but not suicide rates rose in Eastern European nations after the fall of their communist regimes in 1989.

Assessments of early response to antidepressant therapy based on condition severity have been contradictory due to the poor measurement properties of the instruments employed and the inappropriateness of condition severity as a criterion of improvement. It is argued that a more valid approach would involve the assessment of improvements in quality of life (QoL) associated with effective therapy. QoL instruments should reflect the views of the patients themselves, the only group able to comment authoritatively on whether they feel benefit from treatment. Research shows that it is the perceptions of the patients that determine whether treatment is sought, how far clinical advice is followed and whether treatment is discontinued. It is argued that the Quality of Life in Depression Scale is the only instrument available that has the required conceptual basis and psychometric properties to investigate the onset of response to antidepressant therapy.

This longitudinal study was performed to characterise frequently readmitted patients in a sample of 64 first-timers of inpatient care. Half of the 12 revolving door patients were psychotic at last discharge. The relative risk for diagnostic change in the Axis I group was nine times higher than in the personality disorder group.

The relationships between the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) and depression were examined in a sample of 53 major depressive patients and 33 healthy controls. Depressed patients exhibit higher harm avoidance scores as well as lower novelty seeking sub-scale exploratory excitability (NSI) scores as compared to healthy controls. However, the other dimensions and their sub-scales do not differ between depressive patients and controls. In the depressive group, the harm avoidance dimension is related to the severity of depression as assessed by the Hamilton scale. This study confirms the state dependence of the harm avoidance dimension and suggests a relationship between the novelty seeking sub-scale NSI and depression.

Assessing the effect of novel pharmaceutical treatments on the quality of life (QoL) of a patient, or group of patients, has been approached in numerous ways over the last 20 years. Techniques as diverse as single questions to multidimensional scales requiring trained assessors to devote several hours to each assessment; from generic questions about how life might have changed to specific issues such as the ability to use a toothbrush. In the pharmaceutical industry, the emphasis is on the registration of a product with national licensing bodies. Each body has tended to see the issue from a different perspective, which has driven study designs to be different in different countries; even different over time within one country. This paper emphasises the basic statistical steps necessary to ensure that a measure of QoL is appropriately recorded, while retaining sufficient flexibility to support the registration in several countries. Aspects about possible study design are included to assist with developing some simple concepts about analysing and then interpreting the results. It is not the intention of the paper to provide the answer, merely to provide the tools to develop the answer robustly. Put briefly, with the right approach generic solutions are feasible and these solutions will have greater utility. The challenge is to recognise exactly what QoL is, and not to deviate from it.

There have been previous suggestions in the literature of a link between schizophrenia and retinitis pigmentosa (RP) or its associated syndromes. In this article, we describe two cases of schizophrenía and two cases of delusional disorder occurring in patients with RP. We explore possible reasons for an association between RP and schizophrenia including shared genetic predisposition, sensory deprivation, coarse brain disease and retinoid dysregulation. Awareness of an association may help to direct future research into the aetiology of these disorders, especially in the areas of neurochemistry and medical genetics.

Prevalence of psychotic depression, and comparison between psychotic and nonpsychotic depression, were studied in 203 consecutive unipolar and bipolar outpatients presenting for treatment of depression in a private practice. Prevalence was 14%. Of the variables investigated (unipolar/bipolar diagnosis, age at baseline/onset, gender, recurrences, atypical features, comorbidity, chronicity, duration of illness, baseline severity) bipolar I diagnosis was significantly more common, and severity of depression was significantly greater in psychotic vs nonpsychotic depression. Discordant findings in the literature may be related to the different samples studied.

The aim of this study was to test that deficit (D) schizophrenic patients as defined by Carpenter et al had a higher prevalence of family history of schizophrenia but less obstetric complications than non-deficit (ND) patients. A lower rate of obstetric complications but an excess of schizophrenic and a higher rate of alcoholism family antecedents in 18 D patients compared to 23 ND patients were found. These results could suggest that there is a different weight of genetic and early environmental factors in D and ND patients.

Allele A1 of the TaqI A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the dopamine D2 receptor gene has been found to be associated with substance abuse and alcoholism. The personality trait of Novelty Seeking (NS) is also associated with substance abuse and dependence. We hypothesised, on the basis of involvement of dopaminergic mechanisms in substance abuse, that the presence of allele A1 of the dopamine D2 receptor gene may represent a genetic predisposition for the NS personality trait. We investigated, therefore, whether the allele A1 of the TaqI A RFLP of the dopamine D2 receptor gene is associated with the NS dimension of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) in healthy Caucasian subjects with no history of alcohol or substance abuse or dependence. We genotyped 204 subjects aged 18 to 30 years. There was no association between any of the alleles of the D2 receptor genes and any of the TPQ scores (NS, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence). We conclude that allele A1 of the TaqI A RFLP of the dopamine D2 receptor is not associated with NS personality trait in healthy Caucasian subjects.