Background: Studies on the association between income inequality and mental have shown mixed results, probably due to methodological heterogeneity. By dealing with such heterogeneity through a systematic review and meta-analysis, we examine the relationship between income inequality, mental health problems, use of mental health services, and resilience.

Resumo AbstractThe evaluation of mental health services has stressed the use of patient-reported outcome scales. Thus, this research aimed at validating the Perception of Change Scale -Patient Version (PCS-P). Three hundred psychiatric patients, attending mental health services, participated in individual structured interviews which use the scale. The scale has 19 items which evaluate perceived changes and response alternatives disposed in a three-point Likert-type scale. Analysis using the Principal Components Method revealed a 3-factor structure: (a) occupation and physical health; (b) psychological aspects and sleeping condition; (c) relationships and emotional stability. The scale had good indices of internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = 0.85), test-retest temporal stability (r = 0.93; p<0.05) and convergent validity with another scale evaluating the related construct of service satisfaction (r = 0.37; p<0.05).

Estudos têm investigado a ansiedade e a adaptação acadêmica em estudantes universitários, mas poucas pesquisas nacionais avaliaram a relação entre estas variáveis. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar o grau de adaptação acadêmica dos estudantes e suas relações com ansiedade e variáveis sociodemográficas e acadêmicas. Trata-se de Pesquisa de Levantamento (Survey), de corte transversal, parte de um estudo multicêntrico. Participaram 316 alunos da Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto e Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro. Foram aplicados os seguintes instrumentos online: Questionário de Vivências Acadêmicas (QVA-r); Escala de Depressão, Ansiedade e Estresse (DASS-21) e Questionário sociodemográfico/acadêmico. Os resultados mostraram grau moderado de adaptação acadêmica, com maiores escores nas dimensões Carreira, Pessoal e Interpessoal e níveis moderados de ansiedade. Na regressão múltipla, maior nível de ansiedade foi preditor de menor adaptação acadêmica, nas dimensões Carreira, Estudo e Institucional. Para a dimensão Carreira, cursar Medicina também foi um fator preditor de menor adaptação. Para ansiedade, os fatores preditores foram: sexo feminino, cursar Enfermagem e ter menor idade. Esta pesquisa pode ser considerada um avanço na área, devido à carência de estudos nesta temática. Estudos futuros deverão incluir outras universidades e regiões do país.

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Background: The affective burden of psychotic disorders has been increasingly recognised.

Perceived improvement has been proposed as an important patient-reported outcome measure in mental health services evaluation. One advantage of this measure is that it can indicate whether other outcome measures, as pre-post differences in symptoms, correspond to a noticeable impact in patients' lives, as assessed by themselves. This study investigated the association between observer and self-reported symptomatic changes and perceived improvement by patients treated in two Brazilian outpatient mental health services. Significant and positive correlations were found between perceived improvement scores and both pre-post differences, obtained in observer-reported and patient-reported symptom scores. Nevertheless, scores of perceived improvement showed to be more correlated to patient-reported than to the observer-rated symptomatic change score. In addition, a greater correlation was found between perceived improvement scores and post-treatment symptom scores, compared to pre-treatment. These results suggest that an improvement in symptom severity, measured by pre-post differences scores, corresponds to the patient perception that he is actually better than before. However, the correlations found were moderate, suggesting that other factors may also be related to perceived improvement and must be investigated in further studies.

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Information was a commonly reported need and which was often unmet, showing no significant association with service use. Greater attention should be given by mental health services to information provision.