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BMJ Mental Health Oct 2023This umbrella review and guidelines aimed to provide evidence to support the rational choice of selected adjunctive therapies for schizophrenia.
QUESTION
This umbrella review and guidelines aimed to provide evidence to support the rational choice of selected adjunctive therapies for schizophrenia.
STUDY SELECTION AND ANALYSIS
Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP)-grading recommendations, 63 randomised control trials (RCTs) (of which 4219 unique participants have completed the RCTs) and 29 meta-analyses were analysed.
FINDINGS
Provisional recommendations (WFSBP-grade 1) could be made for two molecules in augmentation to antipsychotics: (1) N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC, 1200-3600 mg/day, for >12 consecutive weeks) in improving negative symptoms, general psychopathology (positive and negative syndrome scale for schizophrenia (PANSS) general psychopathology factor (G)-G subscale), with the RCTs with the longer duration showing the most robust findings; (2) polyunsaturated fatty acids (3000 mg/day of eicosapentaenoic acid, for >12 weeks) in improving general psychopathology. Weaker recommendations (ie, WFSBP-grade 2) could be drawn for sarcosine (2 g/day) and minocycline (200-300 mg/day) for improving negative symptoms in chronic schizophrenia (not early schizophrenia), and NAC for improving positive symptoms and cognition. Weak recommendations are not ready for clinical practice. There is provisional evidence that oestrogens and raloxifene are effective in some patients, but further research is needed to determine their benefit/risk ratio.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of this umbrella review should be interpreted with caution as the number of RCTs included in the meta-analyses was generally small and the effect sizes were weak or medium. For NAC, two RCTs with low risk of bias have provided conflicting results and the WFSBP-grade recommendation included also the results of meta-analyses. These drugs could be provisionally prescribed for patients for whom no other treatments have been effective, but they should be discontinued if they prove ineffective.
Topics: Humans; Acetylcysteine; Amino Acids; Anti-Inflammatory Agents; Antipsychotic Agents; Schizophrenia; Meta-Analysis as Topic; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 37852631
DOI: 10.1136/bmjment-2023-300771 -
Academic Medicine : Journal of the... Feb 2022For many persons worldwide, mental health is inseparably linked with spirituality and religion (S&R), yet psychiatrists have repeatedly expressed doubts regarding their...
PURPOSE
For many persons worldwide, mental health is inseparably linked with spirituality and religion (S&R), yet psychiatrists have repeatedly expressed doubts regarding their preparedness to address patients' spirituality or religion appropriately. In recent decades, medical educators have developed and implemented curricula for teaching S&R-related competencies to psychiatry residents. The authors reviewed the literature to understand the scope and effectiveness of these educational initiatives.
METHOD
The authors searched 8 databases to identify studies for a scoping review and a systematic review. The scoping review explored educational approaches (topics, methods) used in psychiatry residency programs to teach S&R-related competencies. The systematic review examined changes in psychiatry trainees' competencies and/or in patient outcomes following exposure to these educational interventions.
RESULTS
Twelve studies met criteria for inclusion in the scoping review. All reported providing residents with both (1) a general overview of the intersections between mental health and S&R and (2) training in relevant interviewing and assessment skills. Seven of these studies-representing an estimated 218 postgraduate psychiatry trainees and at least 84 patients-were included in the systematic review. Residents generally rated themselves as being more competent in addressing patients' S&R-related concerns following the trainings. One randomized controlled trial found that patients with severe mental illness who were treated by residents trained in S&R-related competencies attended more appointments than control patients.
CONCLUSIONS
S&R-related educational interventions appeared generally well tolerated and appreciated by psychiatry trainees and their patients; however, some topics (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous) received infrequent emphasis, and some experiential teaching methodologies (e.g., attending chaplaincy rounds) were less frequently used for psychiatry residents than for medical students. The positive association between teaching S&R-related competencies to psychiatry residents and patient appointment attendance merits further study. Future trainings should supplement classroom learning with experiential approaches and incorporate objective measures of resident competence.
Topics: Curriculum; Education, Medical; Internship and Residency; Psychiatry; Religion; Spirituality; Students, Medical
PubMed: 34010864
DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004167 -
International Journal of Methods in... Jun 2016The expansion of biomedical literature is creating the need for efficient tools to keep pace with increasing volumes of information. Text mining (TM) approaches are... (Review)
Review
The expansion of biomedical literature is creating the need for efficient tools to keep pace with increasing volumes of information. Text mining (TM) approaches are becoming essential to facilitate the automated extraction of useful biomedical information from unstructured text. We reviewed the applications of TM in psychiatry, and explored its advantages and limitations. A systematic review of the literature was carried out using the CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Cochrane databases. In this review, 1103 papers were screened, and 38 were included as applications of TM in psychiatric research. Using TM and content analysis, we identified four major areas of application: (1) Psychopathology (i.e. observational studies focusing on mental illnesses) (2) the Patient perspective (i.e. patients' thoughts and opinions), (3) Medical records (i.e. safety issues, quality of care and description of treatments), and (4) Medical literature (i.e. identification of new scientific information in the literature). The information sources were qualitative studies, Internet postings, medical records and biomedical literature. Our work demonstrates that TM can contribute to complex research tasks in psychiatry. We discuss the benefits, limits, and further applications of this tool in the future. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Topics: Data Mining; Humans; Psychiatry
PubMed: 26184780
DOI: 10.1002/mpr.1481 -
The British Journal of Psychiatry : the... Sep 2023The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed healthcare significantly and telepsychiatry is now the primary means of treatment in some countries. (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
BACKGROUND
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed healthcare significantly and telepsychiatry is now the primary means of treatment in some countries.
AIMS
To compare the efficacy of telepsychiatry and face-to-face treatment.
METHOD
A comprehensive meta-analysis comparing telepsychiatry with face-to-face treatment for psychiatric disorders. The primary outcome was the mean change in the standard symptom scale scores used for each psychiatric disorder. Secondary outcomes included all meta-analysable outcomes, such as all-cause discontinuation and safety/tolerability.
RESULTS
We identified 32 studies ( = 3592 participants) across 11 mental illnesses. Disease-specific analyses showed that telepsychiatry was superior to face-to-face treatment regarding symptom improvement for depressive disorders ( = 6 studies, = 561; standardised mean difference s.m.d. = -0.325, 95% CI -0.640 to -0.011, = 0.043), whereas face-to-face treatment was superior to telepsychiatry for eating disorder ( = 1, = 128; s.m.d. = 0.368, 95% CI 0.018-0.717, = 0.039). No significant difference was seen between telepsychiatry and face-to-face treatment when all the studies/diagnoses were combined ( = 26, = 2290; = 0.248). Telepsychiatry had significantly fewer all-cause discontinuations than face-to-face treatment for mild cognitive impairment ( = 1, = 61; risk ratio RR = 0.552, 95% CI 0.312-0.975, = 0.040), whereas the opposite was seen for substance misuse ( = 1, = 85; RR = 37.41, 95% CI 2.356-594.1, = 0.010). No significant difference regarding all-cause discontinuation was seen between telepsychiatry and face-to-face treatment when all the studies/diagnoses were combined ( = 27, = 3341; = 0.564).
CONCLUSIONS
Telepsychiatry achieved a symptom improvement effect for various psychiatric disorders similar to that of face-to-face treatment. However, some superiorities/inferiorities were seen across a few specific psychiatric disorders, suggesting that its efficacy may vary according to disease type.
Topics: Humans; COVID-19; Pandemics; Psychiatry; Telemedicine; Cognitive Dysfunction; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 37655816
DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2023.86 -
Journal of Medical Internet Research Mar 2022Mental health disorders are a leading cause of medical disabilities across an individual's lifespan. This burden is particularly substantial in children and adolescents... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Mental health disorders are a leading cause of medical disabilities across an individual's lifespan. This burden is particularly substantial in children and adolescents because of challenges in diagnosis and the lack of precision medicine approaches. However, the widespread adoption of wearable devices (eg, smart watches) that are conducive for artificial intelligence applications to remotely diagnose and manage psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents is promising.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to conduct a scoping review to study, characterize, and identify areas of innovations with wearable devices that can augment current in-person physician assessments to individualize diagnosis and management of psychiatric disorders in child and adolescent psychiatry.
METHODS
This scoping review used information from the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. A comprehensive search of several databases from 2011 to June 25, 2021, limited to the English language and excluding animal studies, was conducted. The databases included Ovid MEDLINE and Epub ahead of print, in-process and other nonindexed citations, and daily; Ovid Embase; Ovid Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials; Ovid Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews; Web of Science; and Scopus.
RESULTS
The initial search yielded 344 articles, from which 19 (5.5%) articles were left on the final source list for this scoping review. Articles were divided into three main groups as follows: studies with the main focus on autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and internalizing disorders such as anxiety disorders. Most of the studies used either cardio-fitness chest straps with electrocardiogram sensors or wrist-worn biosensors, such as watches by Fitbit. Both allowed passive data collection of the physiological signals.
CONCLUSIONS
Our scoping review found a large heterogeneity of methods and findings in artificial intelligence studies in child psychiatry. Overall, the largest gap identified in this scoping review is the lack of randomized controlled trials, as most studies available were pilot studies and feasibility trials.
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Psychiatry; Artificial Intelligence; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Child Psychiatry; Humans; Wearable Electronic Devices
PubMed: 35285812
DOI: 10.2196/33560 -
Der Nervenarzt May 2021The benefits and risks of treatment with antipsychotics during pregnancy must be weighed up carefully and individually because antipsychotics can penetrate the placental... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
The benefits and risks of treatment with antipsychotics during pregnancy must be weighed up carefully and individually because antipsychotics can penetrate the placental barrier and prescription is off-label.
OBJECTIVE
Evaluation of the risks and benefits of administering antipsychotics during pregnancy or for women who wish to become pregnant regarding teratogenic effects, risk of fetal death and stillbirths, perinatal complications, persisting postnatal impairments or disorders and gestational diabetes.
METHODS
A systematic review of the literature is provided to aid the selection of psychotropic drugs during pregnancy and in determining whether to begin, continue or switch an antipsychotic treatment during pregnancy.
RESULTS
Large, well-designed and controlled studies are missing; however, most studies suggest that the group of antipsychotics seem to be safe in terms of teratogenicity during pregnancy, at least in monotherapy.
CONCLUSION
Treating mental illnesses during pregnancy requires an individual assessment of the benefits and risks. The risk of an untreated mental illness versus the benefit of a suitable treatment with antipsychotics and the potential harm to the infant must be evaluated. If certain rules are observed and a suitable antipsychotic is selected the risk to the newborn child and/or mother during pregnancy can be minimized, however, a decision about subsequent medication can only be indirectly made from the results of this study.
Topics: Antipsychotic Agents; Female; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Mental Disorders; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications; Psychotropic Drugs
PubMed: 33000289
DOI: 10.1007/s00115-020-01006-8 -
Psychiatric Genetics Dec 2022Psychiatric diseases exact a heavy socioeconomic toll, and it is particularly difficult to identify their risk factors and causative mechanisms due to their... (Review)
Review
Psychiatric diseases exact a heavy socioeconomic toll, and it is particularly difficult to identify their risk factors and causative mechanisms due to their multifactorial nature, the limited physiopathological insight, the many confounding factors, and the potential reverse causality between the risk factors and psychiatric diseases. These characteristics make Mendelian randomization (MR) a precious tool for studying these disorders. MR is an analytical method that employs genetic variants linked to a certain risk factor, to assess if an observational association between that risk factor and a health outcome is compatible with a causal relationship. We report the first systematic review of all existing applications and findings of MR in psychiatric disorders, aiming at facilitating the identification of risk factors that may be common to different psychiatric diseases, and paving the way to transdiagnostic MR studies in psychiatry, which are currently lacking. We searched Web of Knowledge, Scopus, and Pubmed databases (until 3 May 2022) for articles on MR in psychiatry. The protocol was preregistered in PROSPERO (CRD42021285647). We included methodological details and results from 50 articles, mainly on schizophrenia, major depression, autism spectrum disorders, and bipolar disorder. While this review shows how MR can offer unique opportunities for unraveling causal links in risk factors and etiological elements of specific psychiatric diseases and transdiagnostically, some methodological flaws in the existing literature limit reliability of results and probably underlie their heterogeneity. We highlight perspectives and recommendations for future works on MR in psychiatry.
Topics: Humans; Mendelian Randomization Analysis; Reproducibility of Results; Causality; Psychiatry; Depressive Disorder, Major
PubMed: 36354137
DOI: 10.1097/YPG.0000000000000327 -
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Oct 2018There is increasing evidence that youth who follow the early onset persistent (EOP), adolescent-onset (AO) and childhood-limited (CL) trajectories of conduct problems... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
There is increasing evidence that youth who follow the early onset persistent (EOP), adolescent-onset (AO) and childhood-limited (CL) trajectories of conduct problems show varying patterns of health, mental health, educational, and social outcomes in adulthood. However, there has been no systematic review and meta-analysis on outcomes associated with different conduct problems trajectories. We systematically reviewed the literature of longitudinal studies considering outcomes of three conduct problems trajectories: EOP, AO, and CL compared with individuals with low levels of conduct problems (low). We performed a series of meta-analyses comparing each trajectory to the low group for eight different outcomes in early adulthood or later. Thirteen studies met our inclusion criteria. Outcomes were mental health (depression), cannabis use, alcohol use, self-reported aggression, official records of antisocial behaviour, poor general health, poor education, and poor employment. Overall, EOP individuals showed significant higher risk of poor outcome followed by AO individuals, CL individuals, and finally participants in the low group. All conduct problems trajectories showed higher risk of poor psychosocial outcomes compared to the low group, but the magnitude of risk differed across trajectories, with a general trend for the EOP to perform significantly worse, followed by the AO and CL. Early intervention is recommended across domains to maximise likelihood of desistance from antisocial behaviour and improvement on several psychosocial outcomes.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Child; Community Psychiatry; Female; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Problem Behavior
PubMed: 28983792
DOI: 10.1007/s00787-017-1053-4 -
Current Neuropharmacology 2023Traditional medicine and biomedical sciences are reaching a turning point because of the constantly growing impact and volume of Big Data. Machine Learning (ML)...
Traditional medicine and biomedical sciences are reaching a turning point because of the constantly growing impact and volume of Big Data. Machine Learning (ML) techniques and related algorithms play a central role as diagnostic, prognostic, and decision-making tools in this field. Another promising area becoming part of everyday clinical practice is personalized therapy and pharmacogenomics. Applying ML to pharmacogenomics opens new frontiers to tailored therapeutical strategies to help clinicians choose drugs with the best response and fewer side effects, operating with genetic information and combining it with the clinical profile. This systematic review aims to draw up the state-of-the-art ML applied to pharmacogenomics in psychiatry. Our research yielded fourteen papers; most were published in the last three years. The sample comprises 9,180 patients diagnosed with mood disorders, psychoses, or autism spectrum disorders. Prediction of drug response and prediction of side effects are the most frequently considered domains with the supervised ML technique, which first requires training and then testing. The random forest is the most used algorithm; it comprises several decision trees, reduces the training set's overfitting, and makes precise predictions. ML proved effective and reliable, especially when genetic and biodemographic information were integrated into the algorithm. Even though ML and pharmacogenomics are not part of everyday clinical practice yet, they will gain a unique role in the next future in improving personalized treatments in psychiatry.
Topics: Humans; Pharmacogenetics; Precision Medicine; Machine Learning; Mental Disorders; Psychiatry
PubMed: 37559539
DOI: 10.2174/1570159X21666230808170123 -
Revue Des Maladies Respiratoires Feb 2018In France, cocaine is the second most commonly illicit drug used after cannabis. Cocaine, mainly smoked in the form of crack, can be responsible for a wide range of... (Review)
Review
In France, cocaine is the second most commonly illicit drug used after cannabis. Cocaine, mainly smoked in the form of crack, can be responsible for a wide range of respiratory disorders. The aim of this systematic literature review was to clarify what is known about the link between cocaine use and alveolar hemorrhage. We performed a Medline search covering the period 1980-2016 and collected data from 84 articles. The number of acute forms described in the literature is small but postmortem studies show that hidden forms are frequent. The diagnosis is based on the association of hemoptysis, anemia and diffuse alveolar opacity. Bronchoalveolar lavage shows hemosiderin-laden macrophages. Of the 13 cases identified, 12 patients had hemoptysis, anemia and diffuse alveolar infiltration on pulmonary or chest CT. In 9 cases, the presence of hemosiderin-laden macrophages was identified in bronchoalveolar lavage or pulmonary biopsy. Except for 2 deaths, the outcome was favorable when cocaine use was stopped. Systematic interventions to help people stopping using this psychoactive substance will protect lung health.
Topics: Cocaine; Cocaine-Related Disorders; France; Hemorrhage; Humans; Lung Diseases; Pulmonary Alveoli
PubMed: 29459175
DOI: 10.1016/j.rmr.2017.06.005