Our data indicate that personality factors and depression are related, independently of patients' age. Differences in this relationship are mainly due to the intensity of depressive symptoms rather than the patients' life period. They also stress the need to consider physical health, level of dependency and severity of symptoms when studying the relationship between personality traits and mood disorders.

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BackgroundCrisis happens daily yet its understanding is often limited, even in the field of psychiatry. Indeed, a challenge is to assess the potential for change of patients so as to offer appropriate therapeutic interventions and enhance treatment program efficacy. This naturalistic study aimed to identify the socio-demographical characteristics and clinical profiles at admission of patients referred to a specialized Crisis Intervention Center (CIC) and to examine the effectiveness of the intervention.MethodThe sample was composed of 352 adult outpatients recruited among the referrals to the CIC. Assessment completed at admission and at discharge examined psychiatric symptoms, defense mechanisms, recovery styles and global functioning. The crisis intervention consisted in a psychodynamically oriented multimodal approach associated with medication.ResultsRegarding the clinical profiles at intake, patients were middle-aged (M = 38.56, SD = 10.91), with a higher proportion of women (62.22%). They were addressed to the CIC because they had attempted to commit suicide or had suicidal ideation or presented depressed mood related to interpersonal difficulties. No statistical differences were found between patients dropping out (n = 215) and those attending the crisis intervention (n = 137). Crisis intervention demonstrated a beneficial effect (p < 0.01) on almost all variables, with Effect Sizes (ES) ranging from small to large (0.12 < ES < 0.75; median = 0.49). However, the Reliable Change Index indicated that most of the issues fall into the undetermined category (range 41.46 to 96.35%; median = 66.20%).ConclusionsThis study establishes the profile of patients referred to the CIC and shows that more than half of the patients dropped out from the crisis intervention before completion. Our findings suggest that people presenting an emotional crisis benefit from crisis intervention. However, given methodological constraints, these results need to be considered with caution. Moreover, the clinical significance of the improvements is not confirmed. Thus, the effectiveness of crisis intervention in naturalistic context is not fully determined and should be more rigorously studied in future research.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1293-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In the prewar period the total number of committed suicide was 439 and 50.8% of them were people with mental disorders. During the war committed were 174 suicides, and 35.1% of them were persons with mental disorders. In the postwar period committed were 320 suicides, and 34.7% of them were persons with mental disorders. The average age of people who committed suicide in the prewar period was 45AE2.5 years, while in the war and postwar period suicide rates increased in youths. The leading method of committing suicide in war and peace circumstances was by hanging, but significantly more (P<0.05) in the prewar period. Suicide by fire arms and hand bombs were significantly higher in war circumstances and postwar period (P<0.001). In peace and war circumstances between those who committed suicide were significantly more addicted to alcohol (P<0.05). The number of those who committed suicide and were schizophrenic was higher in war circumstances, but not significantly. In war and postwar period was a higher number of suicide committed by people with acute psychotic disorders (P<0.001) and a significantly higher number of those who committed suicide and suffered form depressive disorders (P<0.05). In war circumstances a higher number suicide was committed by people with acute psychotic disorders, young-aged and by fire arms.