Short-term exposure to antipsychotics has proven to be beneficial. However, naturalistic studies are lacking regarding the long-term use of antipsychotics. This study aimed to investigate changes in use of antipsychotics over 20 years after a first-episode schizophrenia.

This study is part of the Danish OPUS trial (1998–2000), including 496 participants with first-episode schizophrenia. Participants were reassessed four times over 20 years. The main outcomes were days on medication, redeemed prescriptions of clozapine, psychiatric hospitalizations, and employment.

At the 20-year follow-up, an attrition of 71% was detected. In total, 143 out of 496 participated, with 36% (n = 51) in remission-of-psychotic-symptoms-off-medication. The lowest number of days on medication (mean [s.d.], 339 [538] days) was observed in this group over 20 years. Register data on redeemed antipsychotics were available for all trial participants (n = 416). Individuals in treatment with antipsychotics (n = 120) at the 20-year follow-up had spent significantly more days in treatment (5405 [1857] v. 1434 [1819] mean days, p = 0.00) and more had ever redeemed a prescription of clozapine (25% v. 7.8%, p = 0.00) than individuals who had discontinued antipsychotics (n = 296). Further, discontinuers had significantly higher employment at the 20-year follow-up (28.4% v. 12.5%, p = 0.00).

In a cohort of individuals with first-episode schizophrenia, 36% were in remission-of-psychotic-symptoms-off-medication. However, high attrition was detected, potentially affecting study results by inflating results from individuals with favorable outcomes. From register data, free from attrition, approximately 30% were in treatment with antipsychotics, and 70% had discontinued antipsychotics. Individuals in treatment had the least favorable outcomes, implying greater illness severity.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is common in children. Long-term cognitive and behavioral outcomes as well as underlying structural brain alterations following pediatric mTBI have yet to be determined. In addition, the effect of age-at-injury on long-term outcomes is largely unknown.

Children with a history of mTBI (n = 406; Mage = 10 years, SDage = 0.63 years) who participated in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study were matched (1:2 ratio) with typically developing children (TDC; n = 812) and orthopedic injury (OI) controls (n = 812). Task-based executive functioning, parent-rated executive functioning and emotion-regulation, and self-reported impulsivity were assessed cross-sectionally. Regression models were used to examine the effect of mTBI on these domains. The effect of age-at-injury was assessed by comparing children with their first mTBI at either 0-3, 4-7, or 8-10 years to the respective matched TDC controls. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD), both MRI-based measures of white matter microstructure, were compared between children with mTBI and controls.

Children with a history of mTBI displayed higher parent-rated executive dysfunction, higher impulsivity, and poorer self-regulation compared to both control groups. At closer investigation, these differences to TDC were only present in one respective age-at-injury group. No alterations were found in task-based executive functioning or white matter microstructure.

Findings suggest that everyday executive function, impulsivity, and emotion-regulation are affected years after pediatric mTBI. Outcomes were specific to the age at which the injury occurred, suggesting that functioning is differently affected by pediatric mTBI during vulnerable periods. Groups did not differ in white matter microstructure.

Cardiac arrhythmias are a major concern in patients with CHD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term outcomes in patients with CHD submitted to catheter ablation.

Observational retrospective study of patients with CHD referred for catheter ablation from January 2016 to December 2021 in a tertiary referral centre. Acute procedural endpoints and long-term outcomes were assessed.

A total of 44 ablation procedures were performed in 36 CHD patients (55% male, mean age 43 ±3 years). Fifty-four arrhythmias were ablated: 23 cavotricuspid isthmus atrial flutters, 10 atrial re-entrant tachycardias, eight focal atrial tachycardias, eight atrial fibrillations, three atrioventricular re-entrant tachycardias, and two ventricular tachycardias. During a median follow-up time of 37 months (interquartile range 12–51), freedom from arrhythmia recurrence was achieved in 93%, with 1.2 procedures per patient (18% with anti-arrhythmic drugs). There were no adverse events related to catheter ablation. No predictors of recurrence were identified.

In patients with CHD, catheter ablation presents a high mid-term efficacy while maintaining a safe profile.

Current guidelines discourage shunt closure in patients with pulmonary vascular resistance index >8 Wood units x m2. The study examined the long-term outcome of patients over 15 years old, with pulmonary vascular resistance index >8 Wood units x m2 and patent ductus arteriosus.

This was a multi-institutional, retrospective study involving all consecutive patients (>15 years old) with patent ductus arteriosus and severe pulmonary hypertension. Patients who had patent ductus arteriosus closure were divided into the Good (no death or hospital admissions due to worsening pulmonary hypertension) and the Poor Outcome groups and these groups were compared.

Thirty-seven patients [male: 9 (24.3%); mean age: 30.49 ± 9.56 years; median follow-up: 3 (IQR: 1.5,10) years] were included from four centers. Twenty-two patients who underwent patent ductus arteriosus closure, 15 (71.4%) had good outcomes while 7 (28.6%) had poor outcomes. Pulmonary vascular resistance index and pulmonary to systemic resistance ratio (Rp:Rs) were lower in the Good Outcome Group (14.35 ± 1.66 Wood units x m2 vs. 20.07 ± 2.44; p = 0.033 and 0.44 ± 0.16 vs. 1.08 ± 1.21; p = 0.042). Haemoglobin concentrations (<14.3 g/dL) were associated with good long-term outcomes in the Closed Group.

Patients with patent ductus arteriosus with severe pulmonary hypertension have a dismal outcome with or without closure. High haemoglobin levels at the time of occlusion predict a worse outcome for patients with patent ductus arteriosus and pulmonary hypertension.

Cognitive reserve (CR) has been associated with the development and prognosis of psychosis. Different proxies have been used to estimate CR among individuals. A composite score of these proxies could elucidate the role of CR at illness onset on the variability of clinical and neurocognitive outcomes.

Premorbid intelligence quotient (IQ), years of education and premorbid adjustment were explored as proxies of CR in a large sample (N = 424) of first-episode psychosis (FEP) non-affective patients. Clusters of patients were identified and compared based on premorbid, clinical and neurocognitive variables at baseline. Additionally, the clusters were compared at 3-year (N = 362) and 10-year (N = 150) follow-ups.

The FEP patients were grouped into five CR clusters: C1 (low premorbid IQ, low education and poor premorbid) 14%; C2 (low premorbid IQ, low education and good premorbid adjustment) 29%; C3 (normal premorbid IQ, low education and poor premorbid adjustment) 17%; C4 (normal premorbid IQ, medium education and good premorbid adjustment) 25%; and C5 (normal premorbid IQ, higher education and good premorbid adjustment) 15%. In general, positive and negative symptoms were more severe in the FEP patients with the lowest CR at baseline and follow-up assessments, while those with high CR presented and maintained higher levels of cognitive functioning.

CR could be considered a key factor at illness onset and a moderator of outcomes in FEP patients. A high CR could function as a protective factor against cognitive impairment and severe symptomatology. Clinical interventions focused on increasing CR and documenting long-term benefits are interesting and desirable.

Cohort studies of the long-term outcome of anxiety, depression and personality status rarely join together.

Two hundred and ten patients recruited with anxiety and depression to a randomised controlled trial between 1983 and 1987 (Nottingham Study of Neurotic Disorder) were followed up over 30 years. At trial entry personality status was assessed, together with the general neurotic syndrome, a combined diagnosis of mixed anxiety–depression (cothymia) linked to neurotic personality traits. Personality assessment used a procedure allowing conversion of data to the ICD-11 severity classification of personality disorder. After the original trial, seven further assessments were made. Observer and self-ratings of psychopathology and global outcome were also made. The primary outcome at 30 years was the proportion of those with no Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnosis.

Data were analysed using multilevel repeated measures models that adjusted for age and gender. Missing data were assumed to be missing at random, and the models allowed all subjects to be included in the analysis with missing data automatically handled in the model estimation.

At 30 years, 69% of those with a baseline diagnosis of panic disorder had no DSM diagnosis compared to 37–47% of those with generalised anxiety disorder, dysthymia or mixed symptoms (cothymia) (p = 0.027). Apart from those with no personality dysfunction at entry all patients had worse outcomes after 30 years with regard to total psychopathology, anxiety and depression, social function and global outcome.

The long-term outcome of disorders formerly called ‘neurotic’ is poor with the exception of panic disorder. Personality dysfunction accentuates poor recovery.

Panic disorder (PD) is generally regarded as a chronic condition with considerable variation in severity of symptoms.

To describe the long-term outcome of naturalistically treated PD.

Fifty-five outpatients with PD, who participated in a placebo-controlled drug trial of the efficacy of alprazolam and imipramine 15 years ago were reassessed with the same instruments used in the original study.

Complete recovery (no panic attacks and no longer on medication during the last 10 years) was seen in 18% of patients, and an additional 13% recovered but were still on medication. Fifty-one percent experienced recurrent anxiety attacks whereas 18% still met diagnostic criteria for PD. The incidence of agoraphobia decreased from 69% to 20%. Patients with agoraphobia at admission tended to have a poorer long-term outcome according to daily functioning compared with patients without agoraphobia at admission, although both groups reported improved daily functioning at follow-up. Maintenance medication was common. No benzodiazepine abuse was reported.

PD has a favourable outcome in a substantial proportion of patients. However, the illness is chronic and needs treatment. The short-term treatment given in the drug trial had no influence on the long-term outcome.

Only a few treatment studies of personality disorders (PD) patients are on longer-term psychotherapy, general outcome measures are used, and follow-up periods are usually short. More studies of long-term therapies, using outcome measures of core psychopathology, are needed.

This study is a dismantling randomized controlled clinical trial, specifically designed to study long-term effects of transference interpretation. Forty-six patients with mainly cluster C personality disorders were randomly assigned to 1 year of dynamic psychotherapy with or without transference interpretations. The outcome measures were remission from PD, improvement in interpersonal functioning, and use of mental health resources in the 3-year period after treatment termination.

After therapy with transference interpretation PD-patients improved significantly more in core psychopathology and interpersonal functioning, the drop-out rate was reduced to zero, and use of health services was reduced to 50%, compared to therapy without this ingredient. Three years after treatment termination, 73% no longer met diagnostic criteria for any PD in the transference group, compared to 44% in the comparison group.

PD-patients with co-morbid disorders improved in both treatment arms in this study. However, transference interpretation improved outcome substantially more. Long-term psychotherapy that includes transference interpretation is an effective treatment for cluster C personality disorders and milder cluster B personality disorders.

In the context of the development of DSM-V and ICD-11 it appears to be useful to get further data on the validity of the diagnostic differentiation between schizophrenic and affective disorders. This study investigated the relevance of the main diagnostic groups schizophrenia, schizoaffective psychosis and affective disorder in the context of different diagnostic systems (ICD-9, ICD-10, DSM –IV), assessing their time stability, long-term courses, types and functional outcome.

A total of 323 first hospitalized inpatients of the Psychiatric Department of the University Munich were recruited at index time. The full follow-up evaluation including standardized assessment procedures could be performed in 197 patients.

The re-diagnosis of the patients’ disorders shows that with the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 or DSM-IV, the group of affective disorders increased numerically while the diagnostic groups of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders decreased in size. The structured clinical interview for DSM-IV (SCID) analysis showed that altogether ICD-10 and DSM-IV had a relatively high diagnostic stability. Of the patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenia, 57% had a chronic course; 61% of the patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia. Patients with affective disorders, according either to ICD-10 or DSM-IV, had in more than 90% of the cases an episodic-remitting course. In terms of prediction of long-term outcome regarding the differentiation between chronic and non-chronic course, the ICD-10 diagnoses did give a slightly better predictive result than a dimensional approach based on the key psychopathological syndrome scores.

The differentiation between schizophrenic and affective disorders seems meaningful especially under predictive aspects. A dimensional syndromatological description does not exceed the predictive power of the investigated main diagnostic categories, but might increase the clinically relevant information.

To study in a prospective manner the long-term prognostic value of the initially recorded Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) scores in anorexia nervosa (AN) patients.

The 5–10-year outcome of 26 consecutive malnourished AN patients was prospectively recorded according to the initial EDI score. We selected only patients with full 6-month assessments for more than 5 years (mean 8.5 years). Eating behavior, quality of life, autonomy and insight capacity were prospectively assessed by the Morgan-Russell scale and a semi-structured interview. At the end of follow-up, 13 patients recovered and the 13 others had a poor outcome.

In monovariate analyses, high initial EDI total score (P < .0007) and high initial scores for perfectionism (P < .001), ineffectiveness (P < .002), interpersonal distrust (P < .004), interoceptive awareness (P < .03) and drive for thinness (P < .05) were significantly associated with a poor prognosis 5–10 years afterward. In a multivariate analysis, only high initial scores for perfectionism (F = 8.43; P = 0.008) and interpersonal distrust (F = 7.46; P = 0.012) were significantly associated with illness severity.

High EDI total score and subscales for perfectionism and interpersonal distrust could predict a long-term severe outcome in AN.

Cognitive alterations are a central and heterogeneous trait in psychotic disorders, driven by environmental, familial and illness-related factors. In this study, we aimed to prospectively investigate the impact of high familial risk for cognitive alterations, unconfounded by illness-related factors, on symptomatic outcomes in patients.

In total, 629 probands with non-affective psychosis and their sibling not affected by psychosis were assessed at baseline, 3- and 6-year follow-up. Familial cognitive risk was modeled by three cognitive subtypes (‘normal’, ‘mixed’ and ‘impaired’) in the unaffected siblings. Generalized linear mixed models assessed multi-cross-sectional associations between the sibling cognitive subtype and repeated measures of proband symptoms across all assessments. Between-group differences over time were assessed by adding an interaction effect of time and sibling cognitive subtype.

Probands affected by psychosis with a sibling of the impaired cognitive subtype were less likely to be in symptomatic remission and showed more disorganization across all time points. When assessing differences over time, probands of siblings with the impaired cognitive subtype showed less remission and less improvement of disorganization after 3 and 6 years relative to the other subtypes. They also showed less reduction of positive, negative and excitement symptoms at 6-year follow-up compared to probands with a sibling of the normal cognitive subtype.

Cross-sibling pathways from higher levels of familial cognitive vulnerability to worse long-term outcomes may be informative in identifying cognition-related environmental and genetic risks that impact psychotic illness heterogeneity over time.

To assess the effectiveness of radiofrequency catheter ablation for lone atrial fibrillation in young adults.

This single-centre, retrospective, observational study enrolled 75 consecutive patients (86.7% men) under 35 (median, 30) years old with lone atrial fibrillation (68% paroxysmal, 26.7% persistent, and 5.3% long-standing persistent) without other cardiopulmonary diseases who underwent catheter ablation between April 2009 and May 2017. Procedural endpoints were circumferential pulmonary vein ablation for atrial fibrillation with pulmonary vein trigger, and target ablation or bidirectional block of lines and disappearance of complex fractionated atrial electrograms for atrial fibrillation with clear and unclear non-pulmonary vein triggers, respectively.

Main study outcome was rate of survival free from atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrence, which at median 61 (range, 5–102) months follow-up was 62.7% (64.7 and 58.3% for paroxysmal and non-paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, respectively) after single ablation, and 69.3% (68.6 and 70.8% for paroxysmal and non-paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, respectively) after mean 1.2 ablations (two and three ablations in 11 and 2 patients, respectively). In multivariate analysis, non-pulmonary vein trigger was a significant independent predictor of recurrent atrial tachyarrhythmia (OR, 10.60 [95%CI, 2.25–49.96]; p = 0.003). There were no major periprocedural adverse events.

In patients under 35 years old with lone atrial fibrillation, radiofrequency catheter ablation appeared effective particularly for atrial fibrillation with pulmonary vein trigger and regardless of left atrial size or atrial fibrillation duration or type. Atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrence after multiple ablations warrants further study.

As relapse after completed cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is common, many treatment protocols include booster programs to improve the long-term effects. However, the effects of booster programs are not well studied. In this study, we investigated the long-term efficacy of Internet-based CBT (ICBT) with therapist support for OCD with or without an Internet-based booster program.

A total of 101 participants were included in the long-term follow-up analysis of ICBT. Of these, 93 were randomized to a booster program or no booster program. Outcome assessments were collected at 4, 7, 12 and 24 months after receiving ICBT.

The entire sample had sustained long-term effects from pre-treatment to all follow-up assessments, with large within-group effect sizes (Cohen's d = 1.58–2.09). The booster group had a significant mean reduction in OCD symptoms compared to the control condition from booster baseline (4 months) to 7 months, but not at 12 or 24 months. Participants in the booster group improved significantly in terms of general functioning at 7, 12 and 24 months, and had fewer relapses. Kaplan–Meier analysis also indicated a significantly slower relapse rate in the booster group.

The results suggest that ICBT has sustained long-term effects and that adding an Internet-based booster program can further improve long-term outcome and prevent relapse for some OCD patients.