The aim of the present study was to explore how patients experience living with long-acting depot antipsychotics given by injection. An interpretive perspective and a qualitative content analysis guided the research process and data analysis. Findings indicate that the participants understood dependency on depot treatment, as a 'safety-net' protecting from relapses and re-hospitalizations. More 'normal lives' became possible despite continuing distress from untoward effects. Participants also expressed favourable attitudes when they suffered from disabling side-effects or when they were committed to psychiatric treatment. Adherence to treatment was understood as crucial for recovering. The recovery process, related to depot treatment, was described as mainly based on the participants' experiential knowledge. This implies the need for exploring, in communication with patients, different kinds of support that might benefit their recovery.

Alexithymics in this study showed a lack of social support and a proneness to high levels of negative emotion and to social distress.

The risk for future DP was more than 40% higher among those initially on sickness absence due to OAD than among other sickness absentees.

Hearing loss is commonly found amongst the normal population and constitutes a hidden problem in working life. The aim of this study was to compare differences between hearingimpaired persons and a control sample of hearing subjects with regard to their work-life conditions and personality traits. The investigation group consisted of 41 hearing-impaired individuals with a mean age of 49 years. The control sample consisted of 182 subjects with a mean age of 36 years. Overall it was found that subjects in the control sample were more satisfied with their current work situation. However the investigation group reported that they performed well at work and, in comparison to the control sample, they reported a higher level

The results indicate that the dichotic test is measuring one of the important ADHD deficits.

Neuropsychological tests were used to evaluate different memory systems in the three subgroups of adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (n=105) using analysis of means, factor analysis, and GLM analysis with covariance of gender, estimated IQ, and level of anxiety and depression measured with the Hospital anxiety and depression scale. A higher IQ level was found in the neuropsychological background tests for the predominantly inattentive subtype (ADD). In the memory tests the dual-task memory/simultaneous capacity tests "Brown-Peterson" Consonant Trigram and Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT) were the most sensitive and were severely reduced in all three subgroups, but only the BVRT revealed a difference between the three ADHD groups. In learning and delayed recall measured with Rey Auditory Verbal learning test and modified Diagnosticum für Cerebralschädigung (mDCS), the Attention Deficit Disorder subgroup had the best learning and delayed capacity of the three groups. A good agreement was found between the interviewed DSM-IV-TR criteria, Conners CAARS S:S scale, and Wender WURS 25-item scales. Despite the difference in number of ADHD criteria for the three ADHD subgroups, the results in the neuropsychological memory tests indicate a severe reduction in all three subgroups of adult ADHD in simultaneous capacity.

Psychological science has the potential to contribute to international diplomacy, and thereby indirectly to the prevention of conflicts between and within states that may escalate to wars. In this introduction of the Special Issue on Diplomacy and Psychology, different varieties of diplomacy are first briefly introduced. Then follows an enumeration of areas of psychological research that show the greatest promise of being directly or indirectly relevant to diplomacy. These research areas include judgement and decision making in negotiations and social dilemmas, social justice, intergroup conflicts, and intercultural processes. An additional area is research on environmental policy making, whose important role needs to be better recognized in international diplomacy. Overviews are also given of the articles included in the Special Issue.

Alexithymia was investigated in a sample of professional nursery workers in Huddinge community, Sweden. Also investigated were feelings of well-being, symptoms of somatic and psychic anxiety, depressive symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, and level of social dysfunction. The prevalence of alexithymia was 7.9%. Half of the items assessing somatic anxiety and 28.5% of those assessing depressive symptoms were related to high TAS-20 scores. The feeling factors of TAS-20, difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings, accounted in this study for the majority of relationships to the other variables. Externally-oriented thinking remained independent and mainly nonrelated to the other measured variables. It was hypothesized that a deficit in the cognitive processing and modulation of emotions may leave alexithymic individuals prone to states of heightened sympathetic arousal. Confirmation of these theories was found in this study where participants expressing high levels of vegetative and visceral symptoms of anxiety also gained high scores for alexithymia and depressive symptoms.