ObjectivesEarly-onset physical morbidity is likely to affect the emotional balance and behavioral adaptation of children and adolescents. Few published studies have investigated psychological morbidity in children with rheumatic heart diseases (RHD). Our work aims to explore the psychiatric symptoms in addition to total competence and quality of life in a sample of Egyptian children with RHD in comparison with those with no RHD and with healthy controls. Participants and methods Children (age 6-18 years) with RHD (n = 24), those with congenital or other heart diseases (non-RHD) (n = 23), and healthy control children (n = 28) were recruited. The Arabic version of the Child Behavior Checklist was completed by parents.
ResultsAfter adjustment for different socioeconomic statuses, all children with heart diseases were found to show more internalizing problems and post-traumatic stress compared with healthy children. Non-RHD children showed more generalized and social anxiety, whereas those with RHD showed higher levels of obsessive-compulsive problems.
ConclusionChildren with heart diseases suffer from high internalizing psychological stress. More effort needs to be made for the early identification and management of psychological morbidity in children with RHD, especially for anxiety and obsessive compulsive symptoms.
Forty four out of 150 patients (29.33%) reported having current and/or previous history of suicidal ideation. Patients with major depression showed the highest suicidal tendencies followed by delusional disorder then bipolar disorder, psychosis related to substance abuse and schizophrenia. The more severe the psychotic symptoms, the more suicidal tendencies shown by patients. Predictors for suicidal ideations included diagnostic category, severity of psychotic features, unemployement and younger age CONCLUSION: Patients with psychosis that require admission to the hospital carry a high risk of suicidal ideation and behavior. Factors like unemployment, young age and psychiatric diagnosis and severity of psychosis could be predicting factors.
Background
Conduct disorder (CD) is a serious and common psychiatric disorder affecting children and adolescents. “Callous-unemotional traits” is a new specifier added to the diagnosis of CD in the DSM-5. The new specifier is thought to be associated with more severity and higher genetic load. Oxytocin is known to be related to interpersonal sympathy and social affection, and so its deficiency might be related to unemotionality. This work aims to explore the levels of serum oxytocin in adolescents with CD associated with callous-unemotional (CU) traits as compared to healthy control subjects. Twenty patients aged 12–18 years and 20 controls of the same age range were recruited. An Arabic-translated and validated version of Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for kids (MINI-kid) was used to confirm the diagnosis. The Youth Psychopathic Inventory-short version (YPI-short version) and the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU), both parent and self-reports, were all translated into Arabic and validated by the authors and used to evaluate the sample. Evaluation of serum oxytocin level using ELISA technique was done.
Results
After statistical adjustment for differences in socioeconomic status, an adolescent with CD associated with CU traits showed low levels of serum oxytocin level as compared with the control group. Serum oxytocin levels were negatively correlated in a statistically significant degree with the unemotional, the callousness, and the uncaring subscores of ICU—self-report.
Conclusions
Low levels of serum oxytocin might play a potential role as a biomarker for CU traits and CD severity in adolescents with CD.
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.