BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are common in women. This sensitivity extends into the perinatal period as well. Thus, screening for anxiety disorders during the aforementioned period is important for the proper management and treatment of conditions. This study was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the Perinatal Anxiety Screening Scale, which was determined to be beneficial for the purposes listed above. METHOD: For this study, the "Perinatal Anxiety Screening Scale" (PASS) was translated into Turkish and relabelled "Perinatal Anksiyete Tarama Ölçeği" (PASS-TR). 312 perinatal women were then evaluated with: the ICD 10 diagnosis system, SCID-1, the Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Hamilton Depression Scale, Beck Anxiety Scale, and PASS-TR. The resulting data was examined using Pearson Correlation analysis, Reliability tests, ROC analysis, and Factor analysis. The generated sub-dimensions were reexamined again by confirmatory factor analysis and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Root Mean Square Residual (RMR), Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) χ 2 /sd, the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). RESULTS: In this assessment, Cronbach's Alpha value for the scale is = 0.95, and the subdimensions obtained by explanatory factor analysis are: (1) general anxiety and specific fear, (2) perfectionism and control, (3) social anxiety and adjustment disorder, (4) acute anxiety and trauma. The cutoff score for the scale is 16. As a result, it was determined that PASS-TR is an accurate method for the scanning of anxiety disorders in the perinatal period. CONCLUSION: PASS-TR can be validly and reliably used to scan for anxiety disorders amongst perinatal women.

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ObjectivesInteractions between neuropeptides and psychiatric disorders have been investigated for many years. The aim of this study was to evaluate oxytocin (OXT), arginine-vasopressin (AVP), and atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and assess their interactions with each other, as well as investigate these changes with the manifestations of schizophrenia.Participants and methodsThirty-four individuals having acute schizophrenia and 24 healthy individuals as the control group were included in the study. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scales, Global Assessment of Functionality score, and Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scores were measured. Serum hormone levels were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and were compared with the clinical findings.ResultsOXT levels were significantly lower and AVP levels were significantly higher in patients having acute schizophrenia than the control group. OXT was negatively correlated with Positive and Negative Syndrome Scales positive score and CGI score, while it was positively correlated with Global Assessment of Functionality score. AVP was negatively correlated with CGI score. ANP levels of the patients having schizophrenia were lower than the control group; however, there was no significant correlation with clinical findings.ConclusionThe obtained data indicate that the AVP level was higher, but OXT and ANP levels were lower in the patients having acute schizophrenia. Specifically OXT is related with reduced disease severity and increased functionality.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin (OXT), vasopressin (AVP) and atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) levels and cognitive functions in schzophrenia as well as to compare the findings to those in healthy controls. Method: Patients with chronic schizophrenia and (n=63) healthy controls (n=60) were evaluated with the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (VLT), the Trail Making Test A-B (TMT), the Stroop Test, the Wechsler Memory Scale-Visual Production Subscale (WMS-V) and the Facial Emotion Recognition Tests. Blood samples were analysed by using ELISA. In the data analysis, the percentage distributions of the variables were obtained, the centrality and prevalence measures (mean, standard deviation) were calculated for the continuous variables, and the dependent and independent variables were evaluated using the chisquare test, the Student's t-test, and the Pearson correlation test. High score variables were determined by principal component analysis. For comparisons between groups; MANOVA applied. Results: Serum OXT, AVP and ANP levels did not differ between the groups. In the healthy control group, subscales of the Stroop, WMS-V and TMT-B tests showed better scores and correlated with levels of OXT (p < .05). In the healthy controls, ANP levels and social cognition had a relationship with response times to happy facial expressions (p < .05). The correlations of OXT, AVP and ANP with the social and cognitive parameters were different between the control group and the schizophrenia group (p < .05). Conclusion: The different correlations in the healthy controls and schizophrenia group suggest deteriorations in the interactions and functions of hormones in patients and highlights the need for new investigations into different neurodegenerative illness samples.

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