bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The COVID-19 pandemic in Russia: Effects on clinicians and mental health services
Authors: Kulygina M. , Kostyuk G. 
Published: February 2022

Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, it has had different infection rates across the world. Russia had one of the largest numbers of infected cases during 2020, but with a lower overall fatality rate. Nevertheless, as in other countries, clinical practice within the mental health care system has faced many stresses and challenges. This concerned the need to organize a treatment of COVID-19 in psychiatric hospitals, as well as a transformation of outpatient care, including psychotherapy, which has largely switched to a remote format. To better understand the effects of the pandemic on mental health professionals, a large-scale study has been implemented through the Global Clinical Practice Network, one of the largest professional communities, which includes 969 members from Russia. The study assessed how COVID-19 affected clinical practice and well-being of clinicians. The first of three surveys was launched in June 2020, in six languages including Russian. Over 2,500 global mental health professionals participated in the study, including 205 clinicians from Russia. Current work circumstances, work-related stressors, and use of telehealth were evaluated. In Russia, the data collection period was characterized by generally improvement in the overall pandemic situation. Results to be presented include the proportion of clinicians that continued working, what kinds of services they provided, their well-being strategies, telehealth modalities and areas in which they had particular concerns about assessment, treatment, or monitoring of patients with mental disorders using remote technologies.DisclosureNo significant relationships.
Analysis of a clinical process of schizophrenia and other psychoses with a process mining method
Authors: Toscano E. Rodríguez , Reneses B. , Pérez S. , Andrés P. , Seara G. , Sevilla J. , Cortés A. , Del Rey-Mejías Á. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionClinical pathways (CPWs) are tools used to guide evidence-based healthcare. They translate clinical practice guideline recommendations into clinical processes of care within the characteristics of a healthcare institution. There are few studies about the impact of CPW in the field of Psychosis in terms of adequacy to their recommendations and clinical outcomes.ObjectivesPSYCHSTAGE project has been designed to study the adjustment of psychosis clinical care to a CPW based in a Clinical Practice Guideline according to a clinical staging model in a network of psychiatric services covering 580.000 inhabitants in a University Hospital in Madrid.MethodsRetrospective and observational study in a sample of 1780 subjects 18 years old or above, diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychosis. Socio-demographic and clinical variables were collected from clinical records, including ICG, GAF and DAS at the time they were included in the study. Clinical stage was established according to McGorry model at the same time. CPW was analysed in 1,391 subjects with 15,254 care events using a Process mining method. Process discovery, process checking and process enhancement analysis have been used.ResultsPatients were grouped according the clinical stage. 9,2% were in stage 2; 18,5% in 3a; 47% in 3b; 22,1% in 3c and 4,1% in 4. A different CPW is represented for each clinical stage in routine practice. Then, every pathway is compared with the recommendations in the established Psychosis CPW.ConclusionsProcess mining can be a useful tool for the study of CPW in the field of psychosis
Integrating mental health services into primary health care – a review of challenges and outcomes in the international setting
Authors: Moreno L. , Sousa A. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionMental illness accounts for about one-third of the world’s disability, a burden that many health systems cannot adequately respond to. Up to 70% of mental health (MH) patients are followed-up in primary health care (PHC) settings. To bridge the treatment gap, the World Health Organization developed mhGAP, a guidance package for integrated management of priority MH disorders in lower-income countries. Other countries have developed their own evidence-based interventions.ObjectivesOverviewing countries’ strategies towards integrating MH services into PHC, their outcomes and challenges.MethodsReview of literature using PubMed search terms “mental health primary care”, MeSH terms “Primary Health Care”, “Mental Health Care” and “organization and administration”, published in the last 5 years, in English.Results25 of 602 articles were selected. The mhGAP programme has seen successful integration in pilot district-level programs, but wider implementation has stalled due to stigma and lack of clinical engagement, resources, MH specialists, and policy support. The Quebec MH reform promoted integrated service networks, improving accessibility and quality of care (QoC). A Norwegian-Russian long-standing collaboration initiative has significantly improved treatment for anxiety and depression (A&D), with 58% reliable recovery rate. A Danish collaborative care intervention provided high-quality treatment of moderate A&D. In Peru, a similar initiative allowed early detection, referral, and treatment of MH patients attending PHC services.ConclusionsComprehensive, integrated and responsive collaborative care models are a cost-efficient strategy to improve QoC for many MH conditions across diverse populations. MH-PHC integration initiatives have seen varying degrees of success. However, several barriers impact wider implementation and scale-up.
Resting state fMRI connectivity of amygdala and hippocampus in women with breast cancer prior to chemotherapy
Authors: D’Imperio A. , Sicuso C. , Fiorelli M. , Mainero C. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionCognitive complaints and psychological distress are common in oncologic patients, in particular many studies have focused on women with breast cancer.Patients presenting the phenomenon of “chemofog” show changes after chemotherapy with regard to memory and emotional regulaiton.ObjectivesTo explore brain connectivity prior to chemotherapy that nevertheless,is understudied.MethodsWe used fMRI to investigate the resting state connectivity in 24 patients before chemotherapy and 15 controls.Patients were assessed with self-administered questionnaires,such as the Patient’s Assessment of Own Functioning Inventory (PAOFI) that quantifies the decrease in perceived functioning in memory, language and problem solving (Image 1).We used a preliminary structural analysis in order to choose which neuropsychological test was affected in correlation with a significant anatomical volume alteration,as showed in the p-value table.Therefore, patients were ranked and divided into two group of “Impaired vs Preserved”, measured using the median of the questionnaire results.Higher scores indicate a poor cognitive self-perceived performance.ResultsConnectivity was altered in amygdala and hippocampus, in the subgroup of patients with higher subjective cognitive complaints i.e with a high PAOFI Memory score.More specifically, we found an association between memory impairment and the increase of the resting state connectivity of both right structures, as opposed to a reduction in left amygdala (Image 3).ConclusionsThese findings may suggest a potential effect on brain functional connectivity of the psychological awareness and stress of cancer itself. We found connectivity alterations for both amygdala and hippocampus, two structures belonging to the limbic system, that is involved in the interplay between cognition and emotions, such as anxiety and fear.
Classification of first-episode schizophrenia patients, individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis, and healthy controls using structural mri, eeg, and machine learning
Authors: Tomyshev A. , Lutsyak N. , Belyaev M. , Kaleda V. , Lebedeva I. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionMachine learning has increasingly been applied to classification of psychosis spectrum in neuroimaging research. However, a number of multimodal studies using MRI and electroencephalography (EEG) is quite limited.ObjectivesTo assess the power of multimodal structural MRI (sMRI) and EEG data to provide pairwise discrimination between first-episode schizophrenia (FES) patients, individuals at ultra-high-risk of psychosis (UHR), and healthy controls (HC) using machine learning algorithms.Methods46 FES male patients, 39 UHR individuals, and 54 matched HC underwent sMRI (3T Philips scanner) and electroencephalography. T1-weighted images were processed via FreeSurfer to obtain cortical and subcortical measures. L2 regularized logistic regression was used to evaluate the efficacy of diagnostic prediction.ResultsThe accuracies of pairwise discriminations were: 87% for FES vs HC (specificity 83%, sensitivity 91%); 77% for FES vs UHR (specificity 76%, sensitivity 79%); 75% for UHR vs HC (specificity 77%, sensitivity 73%).ConclusionsCurrent findings suggest that the patterns of anatomical and functional variability have potential as biomarkers for discrimination between schizophrenia, UHR, and healthy subjects. Furthermore, results show that the selection and multimodality of feature types are important. Specifically, adding EEG data to morphometric measures improved accuracy rates in FES vs HC and FES vs UHR contrasts, whereas standalone EEG data provided higher accuracy compared with morphometric or multimodal data in UHR vs HC discrimination. Expectedly, predictive power for the UHR was smaller than for the FES due to its intermediate anatomical features, located between those observed in healthy controls and those found in patients. The work was supported by RFBR grant 20-013-00748
Human umbilical cord blood infusions in management of autism spectrum disorder: Narrative review
Authors: Adnan M. , Motiwala F. , Mansuri Z. , Reddy A. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionAccording to CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network surveillance in 2016, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was prevalent in 1 in 54 children in 11 states of the US.ObjectivesThis systematic review provides an overview of Umbilical Cord Blood Infusion (UCB) to decrease symptoms severity in children with (ASD).MethodsSystematic literature search was conducted using “Autism” OR “Autism spectrum disorder” AND “Autologous Umbilical Cord Blood Infusion (AUCBI)” OR “umbilical cord blood” OR “Allogeneic Cord Blood” in PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO. Three studies were qualified on AUCBI.ResultsWe found 3 studies on UCBI The UCB Infusion phase-I/ open-label trial showed significant improvement in cognitive and behavior scales, especially in the social domain in the first six months, and was more significant in children with higher baseline nonverbal intelligence quotients. Other study/phase II trial failed to show any effects of UCBI on social communication, vocabulary, and other autism symptoms. On subgroup analysis, the improvement in Clinical Global Impression - Improvement (CGI-I) in children without intellectual disability (ID) with the allogenic (not autologous) UCBI was observed. Another randomized, blinded crossover trial failed to show any difference between improvements in CGI baseline severity scores in placebo vs. cord blood infusion groups.ConclusionsThe data provides evidence to support the efficacy and safety of autologous UCBI in symptom severity reductions and improved clinical outcomes without intellectual disability. However, the evidence is inadequate and future large scale clinical are required.
Psychotherapies for neurocognitive disorder due to alzheimer’s disease- the current level of evidence
Authors: Vasile D. , Vasiliu O. , Vasiliu D. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionPsychosocial interventions for Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) may increase patients quality of life and overall functioning, while it decreases caregivers burden. Therefore psychotherapies represent an important component of the case management, beside pharmacological approaches.ObjectivesTo review the current psychotherapeutic options available for patients diagnosed with AD, that may be added to their ongoing pharmacological treatment.MethodsA literature review was conducted through main electronic databases, and papers published between January 2000 and August 2020 were included in the analysis.ResultsCognitive stimulation therapy is based on general cognitive abilities training, with an accent over the social interaction, and it has been associated with significant improvement when compared to wait list or standard care. Reminiscence therapy, usually administered in a group format, focuses on past experinces, triggered by photos, newspaper fragments, music tunes etc., and according to a meta-analysis it may increase communicational, cognitive, and affective abilities. Validation therapy is based on a very empathic communication and tries to acknowledge patients perspective over the world, but the data to support its efficacy is limited for AD. Multisensorial stimulation is based on the assumption that stimuli deprivation is involved in the onset of anxiety, restlessness, insomnia etc, and may lead to short-term non-cognitive symptoms. Music therapy, art therapy, and animal-assisted therapy are also indicated, but more trials are needed to confirm their efficacy.ConclusionsA large number of psychotherapeutic interventions are explored for AD patients, but most of them have low levels of evidence.
Sexual well-being in old age
Authors: Humboldt S. Von , Leal I. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionOlder adults who engage in sexual activities may benefit from increasing psychological and physical well-being, which may contribute to reduce a number of physical and mental health problems.ObjectivesTo analyze sexual well-being (SWB) in older adults’ perspective and to examine the potential explanatory mechanisms of a SWB overall model, in an older cross-national sample.MethodsMeasures were completed, using a variety of appropriate methods, including demographics and interviews. Complete data were available for 326 older adults aged between 65-102 years. Data were subjected to content analysis. Representation of the associations and latent constructs were analyzed by a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA).ResultsThe most prevalent response of the interviewed participants for SWB was “touching and caring” (18.0%). A three-dimension model formed by “care and well-being”, “attractiveness, intimacy and touching”, and “sexual intercourse and pleasure” was presented as a best-fit solution for English older adults. SWB for Portuguese older adults were explained by a three-factor model: “health and desire”, “care, eroticism and affection” and “penetration sex”.ConclusionsThe outcomes presented in this paper emphasized the need to explore the diversity of indicators of SWB among older adults and the cultural differences of a SWB model for older adults.
Does spirituality and religiousness influence verbal functions in stroke patients?
Authors: Giannouli V. , Giannoulis K. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionPatients after stroke may experience different cognitive and emotional changes based on the levels of their spirituality and religiousness.ObjectivesThis preliminary study aims to explore whether self-reports in two questionnaires measuring the personal experience of spirituality and religiousness can influence cognition and more specifically performance on neuropsychological tests examining verbal functions.MethodsFifteen male stroke patients participated voluntarily one year after their hospitalization. The mean age of the patients was 75.58 years (SD = 7.50, range 61-90), level of education 15.47 years (SD = 3.82). In addition to that, fifteen controls with similar demographics, free of physical and mental diseases, were also examined. Depressive symptoms of the participants were assessed with the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, the Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R) and a number of standardized tests examining verbal functions such as word list learning (number of words on immediate and delayed recall), story learning (number of words on immediate and delayed recall).Resultsshowed a statistically significant difference between the control group and the stroke group in performance regarding verbal functions, with the first group showing higher scores. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups regarding the levels of spirituality and religiousness.ConclusionsAlthough spirituality and religiousness may be related with quality of life, cognitive functions such as verbal functions are not influenced one year post-stroke.
The repercussions of burnout among health care professionals in medical oncology in tunisia
Authors: Daldoul A. , Khechin W. , Krir W. , Ezzairi F. , Kefi H. , Zaied S. , Ahmed S. Ben 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionFreudenberger was the first to define burnout as a feeling of helplessness and guilt, as well as boredom and disinterest.ObjectivesOur study aimed to analyze functional complaints and the behavior of healthcare professionals in this area associated with this syndrome.MethodsThis was a cross sectional study including health care professionals in medical oncology working in public hospitals in Tunisia. It was carried out from 15 January 2019 to 15 June 2019. Health professionals were asked to answer the Maslach –Burnout Inventory Test.ResultsThe average age was 34 years ± 6.7. Burn-out was found in 15 of the participants, (21%). In our population, a high emotional exhaustion score was significantly associated with its repercussions: Sadness, Blockage, sleep disturbances, unexplained pain, Epigastralgia / fatigue, Addictive behavior ; avoidance behavior, repercussions on the relationship with those around them, desire for a transfer, regret for choosing a profession, suicidal thoughts, absenteeism and smoking. A high depersonalization score was significantly associated with several functional and behavior complaints, in particular: irritability, anger, feeling of indifference, guilt, unexplained pain, decreased performance, suicidal thoughts. A low personal achievement score was significantly associated with psychotropic drug use. Global burn-out was significantly associated with feeling of blockage, guilt, unexplained pain, epigastralgia and fatigue, addictive behaviors and avoidance behaviors as well as suicidal thoughts, absenteeism and consumption of psychotropic drugs.ConclusionsThrough its impact on professionals, burnout in medical oncology represents a major threat to the quality of care and the survival of institutions.
Pain perception in schizophrenia: A neglected phenomenon with a great impact
Authors: Faouel N. , Mohamed B. Ben , Bejar M. , Zaafrane F. , Gaha L. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionA decrease in pain sensitivity has been observed in patients with schizophrenia since the beginning of the twentieth century. This hypothesis further emerged during the last decades due to many clinical findings.ObjectivesTo study pain responsiveness in patients with schizophrenia and explore its physiopathological mechanism through a review of the literature.MethodsWe searched the Medline database with no time restrictions, and we hand searched the references of all retrieved reviews. After removing duplicates, we selected Full-text articles in both French and English languages. Keywords: “schizophrenia”, “pain”, “pain threshold”, “nociceptors”, “opioid receptors”, “opioid peptides”ResultsWe have collected 399 references, we finally included 50 Articles only. Many case reports with heterogeneous types of pain concluded that despite the high prevalence of somatic comorbidities in patients with schizophrenia, there was no significant difference in pain complaints between patients with schizophrenia and controls. There was a positive correlation between the decrease in pain sensitivity and schizophrenia. Experimental studies supported a decrease in pain perception and a high pain threshold in those patients. The neurobiological hypothesis suggested the lack of pain transmission by the dysfunctional glutamatergic system and the involvement of the opioid system. these findings have been reported in patients even before starting treatment. The psychopathology theory pointed to the impact of psychotic defenses such as denial and cleavage in the phenomenon of pain insensitivity.ConclusionsThe meticulous research of pain symptoms should be systematic in patients with schizophrenia and the hypoalgesia should be considered when dealing with somatic conditions in this specific population.
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures and personality disorders
Authors: Ezquerra B. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionEpilepsy and its psychiatric comorbidities have been studied frequently over the course of the last years. However, few studies have aimed to establish the relationship between psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and personality disorders.ObjectivesThe aim of the current study is to discuss the relationship between different personality disorders and PNES in comparison to patients diagnosed of epilepsy but no PNES.MethodsA case of a 48 year old female patient who attends an intensive following unit at a psychiatric day hospital is presented. The patient was diagnosed with epilepsy at 25 years old. In the last 10 years she has grown completely dependent on her family, presenting at least one epileptic seizure or PNES during the day. She attends the psychiatric unit after neurologists diagnose highly frequent PNES with interference in her day to day routine. During her follow-up at the psychiatric unit different personality disorders are considered. Furthermore, PubMed, Web of Science and PsycInfo databases were searched, using a pre-established strategy in order to identify recent related studies. Afterwards, studies were selected in a systematized manner.ResultsAccording to different studies up to 75% of patients with PNES have a comorbid personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder seems to be the most frequently simultaneous axis II diagnosis.ConclusionsPsychiatric disorders are more frequent in patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures than patients with only epileptic seizures
Monoamine oxidase a gene polymorphism associated with hostility in male population of 45-64 in Russia/Siberia
Authors: Gafarov V. , Gromova E. , Panov D. , Gagulin I. , Gafarova A. , Maximov V. 
Published: February 2022

IntroductionThe presence of low-activity alleles of the MAOA gene increases the risk of hostility.ObjectivesTo study the association of hostility with high and low-active variants of the MAOA gene in an open population of men 45-64 years.MethodsUnder the WHO International Program MONICA-psychosocial and HAPIEE a representative sample of men aged 45–64 years (n = 781 men, average age was 56.48 ± 0.2 years) examined in 2003-2005. All respondents independently completed a questionnaire on hostility. From the surveyed sample using the random number method 156 men were selected who were genotyped for MAOA-uVNTR polymorphism.ResultsIt was found the level of hostility in the population of men was 60.3%. In persons with low-active alleles of the MAOA-L gene (allele 2 and 3) a high level of hostility was more common - 50.9%. The results of building a logistic regression model showed that the presence of low-active alleles (2; 3) of the MAOA gene increases the likelihood of hostility OR = 2,103 (95% CI 1,137-3,889, p = 0.018).ConclusionsOur findings allow us to conclude that the low-active allele of the MAOA-L gene is associated with hostility.