1,721,107 research outputs found
Clinical variables related to antidepressant-induced mania in bipolar disorder
No full textBACKGROUND: The development of mania or hypomania during antidepressant treatment is a serious complication of the clinical management of bipolar disorder (BP). The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical variables related to antidepressant-induced mania or hypomania (AIM) in patients with BP. METHODS: DSM-IV BP-I or BP-II patients who had had at least one depressive episode treated with antidepressants were considered. Patients were subdivided into two groups according to the presence (n = 30) or absence (n = 106) of manic or hypomanic episodes occurring during antidepressant treatment.
Possible predictive clinical variables of AIM were considered: gender, diagnostic subtype, age at onset, duration of illness, duration of untreated illness, type of antidepressant administered, number of previous spontaneous hypomanic or manic episodes, number of previous depressive episodes, presence of lifetime suicide attempts, presence of mood stabilizer treatments, presence of psychotic symptoms during spontaneous episodes, family history for psychiatric disorders in first degree relatives. Data were compared between the two groups, with (AIM+) and without (AIM-) antidepressant-induced mania, using Student's t tests and chi-square tests. RESULTS: The lack of mood stabilizer treatments during antidepressant therapy (chi-square = 37.602, df = 1, p < 0.001) and the exposure to tricyclic antidepressants (chi-square = 4.901, df = 1, p < 0.05) resulted significantly associated to the development of AIM. LIMITATIONS: This study was not done under controlled conditions and the relatively small sample studied warrants further replications. CONCLUSIONS: These results point out the risk of mania induction associated to the use of tricyclic antidepressants in BP patients, mainly in absence of adequate mood stabilizers
National epidemiological survey on bipolar disorders (RENDIBI): preliminary data
No full textBackground and Aims: Bipolar disorder (BD) is related to high dis- ability rates and significant social costs. The aim of the survey was to collect the main socio-demographic and clinical variables of bipolar patients referring to Italian public psychiatric services. The survey was conducted with the support of the Italian ISBD section. Methods: Each centre enrolled 20–50 bipolar subjects over a 3- months-period, for three times between 2014 and 2015. Patients underwent a diagnostic (MINI) and psychometric assessment (HAM-D, HAM-A, YMRS, Mood Insight Scale, CGI). Statistical descriptive analyses were performed.
Results: Twenty-eight centres collected 1,674 patients (M = 714, F = 960, mean age 48.7 + 13.5 SD years). A positive psychiatric family history was found in 9.2%. The duration of illness was 17 + 12.6 SD years, whereas the age at first BD episode was 31.3 + 12 SD years, comparable to the age at first contact with a mental health service. The predominant polarity over the course of illness was depressive in 47.3% of cases, followed by manic polarity (26.2%). A similar pattern of frequency was reported for the first BD episode. First psychiatric diagnosis was formulated at 30.6 + 11.9 SD years, being more frequently Major Depressive Disorder (43.9%) and BD (32.7%). Patients received the first BD diagnosis and appropriate treatment around 37.4 + 13.4 SD years. Conclusions: BD is often related to a delayed diagnosis and, frequently, treatment is limited to acute phases rather than be aimed to long-term mood stabilization. Therefore, a raised awareness among psychiatric services is needed in order to detect and treat earlier the disorder
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in the treatment of bipolar disorder: preliminary evidence from a 12-month open-label study
No full textBackground: The literature on the use of quetiapine for the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD) is limited to case reports, and there are no systematic studies on the efficacy of quetiapine in the prophylactic treatment of BD. The aim of the present study was to compare the efficacy of flexible doses of quetiapine and well established mood stabilizers in the maintenance treatment of BD. Methods: Twenty-eight DSM-IV BD outpatients were consecutively recruited into the study and were randomized to receive one of two open-label treatments, with quetiapine or classical mood stabilizers at flexible doses for 12 months. Clinical assessment was carried out using BPRS, CGI, YMRS and the 21-item HAM-D at baseline (T0) and every 2 months until the end of the study. ANOVAs with repeated measures were applied to the rating scale scores considering the time and the treatment group as main factors. Results: All patients experienced a significant improvement on the BPRS, CGI and HAM-D scores, with no significant side-effects and a good compliance. Limitations: This study should be considered preliminary given the small sample size investigated and the open-label design. Conclusions: If these results will be replicated on larger samples and in controlled studies, there could be relevant implications for the use of quetiapine as an alternative maintenance treatment for BD
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