Although functional recovery could be advocated as an achievable treatment goal, many effective interventions for the treatment of psychotic symptoms, such as antipsychotic drugs, may not improve functioning. The last two decades of cognitive and clinical research on schizophrenia were a turning point for the firm acknowledgment of how relevant social cognitive deficits and negative symptoms could be in predicting psychosocial functioning. The relevance of social cognition dysfunction in schizophrenia patients' daily living is now unabated. In fact, social cognition deficits could be the most significant predictor of functionality in patients with schizophrenia, non-redundantly with neurocognition. Emerging evidence suggests that negative symptoms appear to play an indirect role, mediating the relationship between neurocognition and social cognition with functional outcomes. Further explorations of this mediating role of negative symptoms have revealed that motivational deficits appear to be particularly important in explaining the relationship between both neurocognitive and social cognitive dysfunction and functional outcomes in schizophrenia. In this paper we will address the relative contribution of two key constructs-social cognitive deficits and negative symptoms, namely how intertwined they could be in daily life functioning of patients with schizophrenia.
Cariprazine is an atypical antipsychotic that has D2 and D3 partial agonism properties in addition to the usual 5-HT2A receptor antagonist action of second-generation antipsychotics. It has a distinctly higher affinity for D3 receptors, which is 10-fold higher than for D2 receptors. Cariprazine is also a 5-HT1A partial agonist, with a potential antidepressant effect. Cariprazine has been approved for treatment of both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia and for treatment of bipolar disorder. It could potentially be used in depression as an add-on treatment. There are few data reporting effectiveness of cariprazine in the broader spectrum of psychosis. In this paper, the authors report three cases where cariprazine was used in the treatment of psychotic conditions other than schizophrenia, namely a first episode psychosis, a case of delusional disorder, and a case of a patient with borderline personality disorder and psychotic symptoms. The authors suggest that cariprazine may be effective in the treatment of psychosis in a broader sense and should be considered a first-line treatment option.
Introduction: The appropriate regulation of thoughts and emotions decreases the likelihood of pathogenic activation of stress response (Gross, 2007). Stress is closely related to impaired sleep incross-sectional studies (Akerstedt, 2006) and can elicit profound and lasting effects on sleep (Hall et al., 2004). Aims: To analyze the associations between perceived stress, cognitive coping strategies and sleep difficulties. Methods: 549 students (80.1% females) from two Portuguese Universities filled in the Portuguese version of Perceived Stress Scale 10 (PSS, Cohen et al., 1983; Amaral et al., 2014), Cognitive Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ, Garnefski et al., 2001; Castro et al., 2013) and three questions were used to access sleep difficulties (initiating sleep, sleep maintenance, and early morning awakening). Results: In the present sample the prevalence for difficulty initiating sleep was 29,8%, of maintaining sleep was 27,9% and of early morning awakening was 30,9%. Considering stress, cognitive coping strategies and sleep, consistent and strongest positive correlations were observed between Perceived Stress and Rumination (from r=.263 to r=.486; p<.01), Catastrophizing (from r=.263 to r=.391; p<.01) and negatively correlated with Positive reappraisal and planning (from r=-.109; p<.05 to r=-.346; p<.01). The correlations between perceived stress and difficulties in initiating and maintaining sleep were from r=.249 to r=.356(p<.01). Strongest correlations were observed between Rumination, Self-blame and Catastrophizing and difficulties in initiating and maintaining sleep (fromr=.152 to r=.258; p<.01). Conclusions: Rumination, Self-blame and Catastrophizing were the cognitive coping strategies consistently associated with perceived stress and difficulties in initiating and maintaining sleep.
Aim: Patients in early phases of schizophrenia or mood disorders with psychotic symptoms have a wide array of metabolic abnormalities. We analysed the potential predictive value of uric acid (UA) levels and other metabolic parameters in firstepisode psychosis patients to differentiate between non-affective and affective psychosis.Methods: Retrospective chart review of all patients referenced to a first-episode psychosis unit (n = 149), between 2012 and 2017, with available UA levels. Patients included (n = 37) were compared according to the follow-up diagnosis of schizophrenia or mood disorder.Results: Mood disorder patients presented higher UA levels (p = .030) and lower fasting blood glucose levels (p = .020) compared with schizophrenia patients. The remaining variables did not show significant intergroup differences.Conclusions: Findings in this first-episode psychosis cohort support previous evidence suggesting higher UA levels as a predictor of affective psychosis and glucose dysfunction as predictive of schizophrenia. Further studies are needed to explore metabolic parameters as possible diagnostic predictors in first-episode psychosis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.