The pharmacological profiles of the atypical antipsychotics, clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine and risperidone, all show a combined serotonin (5-HT2) and dopamine type-2 (D2) receptor antagonism. Amisulpride, a highly selective dopamine D2/D3 receptor antagonist that binds preferentially to receptors in the mesolimbic system, is also an 'atypical' antipsychotic despite having a different recept...

BACKGROUND Whether olanzapine/fluoxetine combination (OFC) is superior to olanzapine or fluoxetine monotherapy in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains controversial. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to compare the efficacy and safety of OFC with olanzapine or fluoxetine monotherapy for patients with TRD. MATERIALS AND METHODS R...

INTRODUCTION The Internal State Scale (ISS) was developed to simultaneously assess manic and depressive symptoms in bipolar disorder. In the present study, the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of ISS (ISS-TR) were examined. The present study aimed to present the psychometric properties of this scale. METHODS The sample consisted of 200 outpatients with bipolar disorder and 49 h...

CONTEXT Elderly persons with psychiatric disorders are less likely than younger adults to be diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receive needed mental health treatment. Lack of access to care is 1 possible cause of this disparity. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a nurse-based mobile outreach program to seriously mentally ill elderly persons is more effective than usual care in diminishin...

The aim of this study is to investigate gender differences in patients with schizophrenia and to consider if the resultant findings will help us to understand the etiopathogenesis, distinctive clinical characteristics, and course of the illness. 40 female and 40 male inpatients admitted to Bakirkoy Neuropsychiatric Hospital and met the diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV for schizophrenia included in...

BACKGROUND Psychosis is a common and debilitating side effect of long-term dopaminergic treatment of Parkinson disease (PD). While clozapine is an effective treatment, the need for blood monitoring has limited its first-line use.  OBJECTIVE Since olanzapine shows similar receptor affinity to clozapine, we hypothesized that it might be an effective alternative to clozapine for treatment of dru...

BACKGROUND The paper reports on a study to evaluate the psychometric properties and cultural appropriateness of the Chinese translation of the Admission Experience Survey (AES). METHODS The AES was translated into Chinese and back-translated. Content validity was established by focus groups and expert panel review. The Chinese version of the Admission Experience Survey (C-AES) was administere...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE This study assessed the safety and effectiveness of the atypical antipsychotic olanzapine for the treatment of inpatients with acute schizophrenia. Furthermore, we evaluated patterns of use of olanzapine and their relationship to safety and effectiveness. PATIENTS AND METHOD This was a prospective, comparative, nonrandomized, open-label, observational study of 848 pat...

The use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and ketamine is of particular clinical concern because of its associated psychotic symptoms. In Chinese clinical practice, ATS and ketamine are commonly used simultaneously, but very few studies have reported the symptom profile of users who use both drugs. This study determined whether the combined use of ATS and ketamine is associated with more psy...

Ocimumn sanctum, an Indian medicinal plant, has been on trial for its role in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in hospital based clinical set-up. Hamilton's brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and thorough clinical investigations were used to screen the subjects. Thirty-five subjects (21 male and 14 female; average age 38.4 years) were medicated with the plant extract in a fixed dose regime...