Background: About one third of patients with schizophrenia are treatment-resistant. The treatment options for these patients are limited. Objectives: To study the short-term efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Methods: 30 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia were included. Patients were assessed at baseline, after 4, and after 6 sessions of ele...

Background: Therapeutic options for patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia are limited. In such cases, a combination of atypical antipsychotic drugs is an often used strategy. We tested the hypothesis that the combination of amisulpride and clozapine would lead to long-term improvement in this patient group. Objective: 15 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia participated in ...

The use of rating scales in psychiatry increased in the late 1950s with the introduction of antipsychotics and antidepressants. Initially rating scales were used mainly to evaluate the effectiveness of new medication against placebo. As the need increased for good reliability and validity, further rating scales were developed and these were used not only in clinical trials but also to diagnose ...

Diagnostic and Symptom Quantification Procedures Masters or Doctoral-level clinicians conducted diagnostic evaluations and clinical ratings. Diagnoses were confirmed by consensus conference. Among a random sample of 10 subjects, the level of inter-rater agreement for diagnosis was high, with kappa = 0.86. Symptoms were quantified with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Scale for the Ass...

INTRODUCTION A significant number of mania patients fail to respond to current pharmacotherapy, thereby there is need for novel augmentation strategies. The results of some early studies showed the effectiveness of cholinomimetics in the treatment of mania. One open case series suggested the efficacy of donepezil in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Our aim was to explore whether an oral choli...

The term ‘treatment-resistant schizophrenia’ is broadly used to describe people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who do not respond adequately to antipsychotic treatment and continue to have residual symptoms and/or poor psychosocial functioning. Although treatment-resistant schizophrenia is a familiar concept, various definitions and criteria have been proposed over the years to define it as ...

The term ‘treatment-resistant schizophrenia’ is broadly used to describe people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who do not respond adequately to antipsychotic treatment and continue to have residual symptoms and/or poor psychosocial functioning. Although treatment-resistant schizophrenia is a familiar concept, various definitions and criteria have been proposed over the years to define it as ...

Valeriana wallichii, an Indian medicinal plant, has been on trial for its role in stress disorders in hospital based clinical set-up. Hamilton’s Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was used and thorough clinical investigations were carried out to screen the subjects. Thirty-three subjects (20 male and 13 female; average age 34.2 years) were medicated with the plant extract in a fixed dose reg...

Methods "Enforced clozapine" implied that if a patient refused oral clozapine they received intramuscular clozapine at half the expected oral dose. The case series involved 12 months follow-up. Baseline and monthly measures included the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Clinical Global Impressions (CGI), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Insight and Treatment Attitudes Questionnaire ...

Objective: To investigate the association between aggression in the first 24 hours after admission and severity of psychopathology in psychiatric inpatients. Methods: This cross-sectional study included psychiatric patients admitted to Hospital Universitário de Santa Maria, in Santa Maria, southern Brazil, from August 2012 to January 2013. At their arrival at the hospital, patients were intervi...