1. Twenty-four anxious inpatients were treated with diazepam, amylobarbitone sodium and placebo in flexible dosage for 1 week. They each received all three treatments according to a fully-balanced design, using double-blind procedures. 2. The clinical and the psychological effects of the drugs were assessed by the comprehensive battery of psychiatrist's ratings, subjective and psychological tests before treatment and at the end of each week of treatment. The tests included self-rating of anxiolytic and hypnotic effects, reaction-time, card sorting, coding and cancellation tasks, arithmetic and tappin. 3. Diazepam improved significantly subjective anxiety and insomnia, while amylobarbitone improved only the self-rated quality of sleep. Occasion effects were absent on clinical measures, indicating that the patients did not respond to non-specific temporal factors. Performance on motor tasks improved over time because of the expected practice effect, but an impairment relative to placebo was detected on two motor tests after the barbiturate and on four other tests with a cognitive component after the benzodiazepine.

Twenty-four anxious inpatients were treated with diazepam, amylobarbitone and placebo, each given in flexible dosage for one week, according to a fully-balanced design. Plasma concentrations of diazepam and of its metabolite nordiazepam and of amylobarbitone were determined after two, four and seven days of treatment. Clinical and psychological assessments were made after seven days of each treatment by means of psychiatrist rating scales, patient's self-rating and a comprehensive battery of performance measures. Diazepam and nordiazepam but not amylobarbitone were accumulating over the seven days of treatment. In patients on diazepam without previous amylobarbitone, nordiazepam accumulated more rapidly than diazepam over the week so that the ratio of diazepam to nordiazepam was 2.21 after two days but only 1.14 after seven days; those with previous amylobarbitone on the other hand always had nordiazepam concentrations higher than those of the administered drug and both were accumulating equally. Diazepam and nordiazepam were still detectable in most patients two weeks after the interruption of treatment. No correlations were found between drug concentrations and clinical and psychological effects.

The organization of psychiatric care in Verona prior to the new Italian Mental Health Act, and the organization of the new South‐Verona Community Psychiatric Service (CPS) implemented in 1978 after the approval of the new law, are described. Case‐register data for the period 1979‐1983 are also reported. To compare in‐patient care provided in South‐Verona after the Reform with that of the previous year, data on hospital admissions during 1977 were collected retrospectively. From 1977 to 1983 compulsory admissions have decreased by 67%, the average number of occupied beds per day and the average length of in‐patient stay have decreased by 34%, while the total rates of admission have increased by 4%. The long‐stay in‐patient rate, which was already considerably low in 1977 (48/100,000), is still decreasing slightly and no ≪new≫ long‐stay patients have accumulated in psychiatric institutions during the past three years. In South‐Verona most of the patients are treated outside the hospital and the same staff is responsible for in‐ as well as for out‐patient care (which includes domiciliary visits and day care), to ensure therapeutic continuity. Although it lacks some complementary facilities the South‐Verona CPS in its five years of experience has been able to bring into action the psychiatric reform as indicated by the new Law.

This Section of Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences appears in each issue of the Journal and is dedicated to all forms of creative production born of an intimate and individual urge, often secretive, unbound from the conventional art system rules. Through short descriptions of the Outsider art work of prominent artists and new protagonists often hosted in community mental health services, this Section intends to investigate the latest developments of the contemporary art scene, where the distances between the edge and the centre are becoming more and more vague.