BACKGROUND Few studies have examined the impact of stimulant use on outcome in early psychosis. Ceasing substance use may lead to positive outcomes in psychosis. AIMS To examine whether baseline cannabis or stimulant disorders and ongoing drug use predict readmission within 2 years of a first psychosis admission. METHOD Predictors of readmission were examined with Cox regression in 7269 peo...

Schizophrenia and other psychosis spectrum disorders do not develop de novo but emerge from prodromal stages that are named and operationalized differently depending on the research group or consortium and its theoretical orientation. As a result, a complex lexicon now exists for characterizing individuals' risk of subclinical symptoms converting to psychosis. Researchers aim to develop instrum...

MAIN RESULTS Prognosis: Women with a history of psychosis are at high risk of a psychiatric episode in the first year after childbirth (see table). Psychosis as a risk factor for post-natal depression: Women with a history of psychosis are more likely to have postnatal depression compared with age matched controls in the first year after childbirth (RR adjusted for active illness 2.04, 95% CI 1...

BACKGROUND Recent studies suggest that violence is more common in the first episode of psychosis than after treatment. AIM To estimate the proportion of survivors of violent suicide attempts during psychotic illness who had not previously received treatment with antipsychotic medication. METHODS An audit of the medical records of patients admitted to an inner city trauma centre after having...

Up to now studies on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity in psychosis have shown inconsistent findings. These inconsistencies have been often ascribed to confounding effects of long duration of illness and chronic treatment with psychotropic medications of the subjects studied (chronic psychosis). In the last years, several studies have focused on the study of subjects at their f...

Lycanthropy is an unusual belief or delusion in which the patient thinks that he/she has been transformed into an animal. In rare cases, the patient believes that another person has been transformed into an animal. In this case report, a patient who had an uncommon variant of lycanthropy is introduced. The patient’s symptoms had appeared after consumption of ecstasy. This shows the occurrence o...

INTRODUCTION Epileptic psychoses are categorised as peri-ictal and interictal according to their relationship with the occurrence of seizures. There is a close temporal relationship between peri-ictal psychosis and seizures, and psychosis may present before (preictal), during (ictal) or after seizures (postictal). Epileptic psychoses usually have acute initial and final phases, with a short sym...

BACKGROUND Psychosis can be associated with acute recreational drug and novel psychoactive substance (NPS) toxicity. However, there is limited data available on how common this is and which drugs are most frequently implicated. We describe a European case series of psychosis associated with acute recreational drug toxicity, and estimate the frequency of psychosis for different recreational drug...

CONTEXT Human and animal studies have suggested an underlying inflammatory mechanism for a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. To date, most available reports focused on adult patients. OBJECTIVE We wished to test the hypothesis that the first psychotic episode in youth is associated with inflammation. PATIENTS We studied patients admitted to a pediatric inpatien...

BACKGROUND Reviews conclude that childhood and adolescence sexual, physical, emotional abuse and emotional and physical neglect are all risk factors for psychosis. However, studies suggest only some adversities are associated with psychosis. Dose-response effects of several adversities on risk of psychosis have not been consistently found. The current study aimed to explore adversity specificit...