Paliperidone Palmitate 3-month (PP3M) formulation, introduced in Italy since 2017, is an effective and safety therapeutic option for patients with schizophrenia, clinically stable with 1-month formulation (PP1M). Only a few “Real World” studies investigated the clinical relevance of PP3M and the long-term clinical and health resource utilization outcomes.

The aim of this retrospective, mirror image study was to evaluate the efficacy of PP3M in terms of continuity of care and number of hospitalizations.

Fifty outpatients treated with Paliperidone Palmitate (PP) were recruited from a Community Mental Health Centre (CMHC) in Milan. Statistical analysis were conducted with SPSS 26. Frequencies of hospitalization 6 months before and after the start of PP3M were compared using the McNemar test, setting the significance to p<0.05.

This study involved 34 patients (68%) treated with PP1M and 16 (32%) treated with PP3M.The median time interval between PP1M and PP3M was 14 months. After the switch to PP3M, 69% of patients continued to visit the CMHC with an unchanged frequency (50% once/month, 6% more than once/month), while 31% with a decreased frequency (once/3 months). No patient increased the frequency of CMHC visits or started visiting it discontinuously. 44% of subjects had had at least one hospitalization prior to the switch and no hospitalizations after (p=0.016). Moreover, no patients showed increased hospitalizations

In this study PP3M clinical relevance was confirmed comparing pre-initiation and post-initiation 6-months time intervals: hospitalizations number significantly decreased, while the continuity of care was preserved. Further studies on a greater sample are necessary to support these preliminary data.

No significant relationships.

Presenting an approach to synthesize quantitative and qualitative information from systematic reviews of multiple health interventions.

Within the context of an EUnetHTA multi-health technology assessment of twenty-three surgical techniques, we developed synthetic single tables, using color gradients and abbreviations, with information on which technologies had been compared, estimates of the size of differences for available comparisons, their clinical relevance, and certainty of the related evidence.

The proposed methodology provided, through a single depiction, information normally included in multiple figures/tables such as network plots, league tables, and summary of findings tables.

Transferring information on benefits, risks, and certainty of the available evidence on health interventions may be challenging, especially when assessing multiple treatments: more pieces of information need to be integrated in order to show an overall picture for each of the chosen outcomes, and usual reporting tools may be targeted to researchers more than to different kinds of decision makers. While more in-depth layers of information can always be added to satisfy needs of different audiences, the proposed tools could favor a quick interpretation of articulated scientific data by both decision makers and researchers.

The opioid system modulator nalmefeneis the first pharmacological therapy approved in the European Union for reduction of alcohol consumption.

To evaluate the clinical relevance of the reduction of alcohol consumption in patients with at least high drinking risk level at screening and randomisation from the two, identically designed, randomised controlled 6-month studies ESENSE1 (NCT00811720) and ESENSE2 (NCT00812461) of nalmefene versus placebo.

Study medication was taken as-needed. All patients received a motivational and adherence-enhancing intervention (BRENDA). Response criteria were based on alcohol consumption at month 6 and Clinical Global Impression – Severity of Illness/Improvement (CGI-S/I), Short Form Health Survey version 2 (SF-36) mental component summary(MCS) scores at week 24. Clinical relevance was also studied using the Drinker Inventory of Consequences (DrInC), Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS), and liver function variables.

Pooled study population: 667 patients (placebo N=332; nalmefene N=335). The proportion of responders was higher in the nalmefene group than in the placebo group with odds ratios for response consistently significantly (p<0.05) in favour of nalmefene. The difference in the proportions of responders translated to numbers-needed-to-treat ranging from 6 to 10. Significant differences to placebo (p<0.05) in the SF-36 MCS and physical component summary score, ADS, DrInC, CGI-I/S and liver enzymes further supported the clinical relevance of the treatment effect.

In view of the immense alcohol-related burden to society, the harm to the individual and the large treatment gap partly due to a reluctance to engage in abstinence, the effect of nalmefene is clearly clinically relevant.

An efficient indicated prevention of psychotic disorders requires valid risk criteria that work in both clinical and community samples. Yet, ultra-high risk and basic symptom criteria were recently recommended for use in clinical samples only. Their use in the community was discouraged for lack of knowledge about their prevalence, clinical relevance and risk factors in non-clinical, community settings when validly assessed with the same instruments used in the clinic.

Using semi-structured telephone interviews with established psychosis-risk instruments, we studied the prevalence of psychosis-risk symptoms and criteria, their clinical relevance (using presence of a non-psychotic mental disorder or of functional deficits as proxy measures) and their risk factors in a random, representative young adult community sample (N=2683; age 16–40 years; response rate: 63.4%).

The point-prevalence of psychosis-risk symptoms was 13.8%. As these mostly occurred too infrequent to meet frequency requirements of psychosis-risk criteria, only 2.4% of participants met psychosis-risk criteria. A stepwise relationship underlay the association of ultra-high risk and basic symptoms with proxy measures of clinical relevance, this being most significant when both occurred together. In line with models of their formation, basic symptoms were selectively associated with age, ultra-high risk symptoms with traumatic events and lifetime substance misuse.

Psychosis-risk criteria were uncommon, indicating little risk of falsely labelling individuals from the community at-risk for psychosis. Besides, both psychosis-risk symptoms and criteria seem to possess sufficient clinical relevance to warrant their broader attention in clinical practice, especially if ultra-high risk and basic symptoms occur together.