For the last 10 years, data have been accumulating indicating that, contrary to former evidence, lithium may play a useful role in the treatment of certain schizophrenic patients. Delva & Letemendia (1982), after reviewing major controlled and uncontrolled studies in this area, concluded that “¿ between one third and one-half of patients with schizophrenia will benefit from lithium―. In two...

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between changes in symptoms and changes in self-reported quality of life among Chinese patients with schizophrenia who were switched from a typical antipsychotic to olanzapine during usual outpatient care. PATIENTS AND METHODS This post hoc analysis was conducted using data from the Chinese subgroup (n=475) of a multicountry, 12...

OBJECTIVE In this cross-sectional study, we sought to assess the extent of internalized stigma among inpatients and outpatients with schizophrenia in the People's Republic of China and to investigate whether education level correlated with the experience of stigma. METHODS Schizophrenia patients were evaluated using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Positive and Negative Syndrome...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether or not risperidone is efficacious in treating self-induced water intoxication in patients with chronic schizophrenia. METHOD We carried out a prospective 11-month open-label study using risperidone to treat 8 men with chronic schizophrenia and self-induced water intoxication. RESULTS The 8 men were not able to reduce their fluid consumption compared with their...

OBJECTIVE Activation of semantic networks is indexed by the N400 effect. We used a twin study design to investigate whether N400 effect abnormalities reflect genetic/trait liability or are related to psychopathological processes in schizophrenia. METHODS We employed robust linear regression to compare N400 and behavioral priming effects across 36 monozygotic twin pairs (6 pairs concordant for...

Therapist ratings of patients' achievement of objectives in psychotherapy were used to examine the impact of drugs on psychotherapy, to identify attributes of patients who achieve therapy objectives, and to assess the importance of the implementation of a crisis-oriented model of therapy. Patients were part of a project investigating the long-acting phenothiazine fluphenazine enanthate and cris...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to compare olanzapine and haloperidol efficacies in the treatment of acute psychiatric symptoms due to amphetamine-type stimulants (ATSs). METHODS The Zelen II design method was used; 124 patients with acute mental disorders due to amphetamine were randomly divided into olanzapine group (n = 63) and haloperidol group (n = 61). Then, a 4-week open-label medical ther...

Although emotional dysfunction is presumed to be a central part of the deficit syndrome in schizophrenia, it has not yet been empirically investigated in deficit and non-deficit patients. Emotional responding was examined in 19 male deficit patients, 22 non-deficit patients, and 20 non-patient controls. Patients participated in a semi-structured clinical interview that included questions from t...

The efficacy of the Historical, Clinical, and Risk Management Scales (HCR-20; C. D. Webster, D. Eaves, K. S. Douglas, & A. Wintrup, 1995), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS; A. T. Beck, A. Weissman, D. Lester, & L. Trexler, 1974), and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) to predict violence and self-harm in 34 institutionalized mentally disor...

The relationship between the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) with other scales in schizophrenia has rarely been investigated. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify articles that reported the GAF score together with scores in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Clinical Global Impression (CGI) or Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), using MEDLINE, EMBASE...