Active clinical trials for "Mental Disorders"

A major proportion of patients admitted to psychiatric acute and emergency departments have symptoms, behaviors or function influenced by implicit or explicit suicidal intention (tendency towards self-harm, or suicide attempt). There is an increased risk of suicide in the acute phase during in-patient stay and after discharge. At present there is no satisfactory tool to predict post-discharge suicide risk. Multidimensional rating is expected to have better predictive properties than one-dimensional rating for suicidal behavior during in -patient stay and two years after discharge. Multidimensional rating assesses anxiety, panic, agitation, suicidal thoughts and ideations, as well as therapist's reactions during interviews. In the present study the predictive properties of two rating scales for suicidal behavior during in-patient stay and two years after will be compared. One of these is a multidimensional scale: "Multidimensional Assessment of Suicide Risk" (MARIS).

The early stages of schizophrenia are associated with significant decreases in social and intellectual abilities, with more declines in chronic disease. Studies have identified relationships between duration of untreated psychosis (the duration between the onset of positive symptoms and treatment) and worse long term outcomes. However, the neurobiology of this phenomenon and its implications for response to antipsychotic medications remain poorly understood. Glutamatergic excess altering brain connectivity might provide an explanation for why those with longer duration of untreated psychosis have worse clinical outcomes. The investigators propose to use neuroimaging to study 67 first episode psychosis subjects before and after sixteen weeks of treatment with risperidone, a common antipsychotic. We will measure (1) glutamate and (2) structural and functional brain connectivity and test the hypotheses that glutamatergic abnormalities are present in first episode patients and that longer duration of untreated psychosis is associated with greater connectivity abnormalities that set the stage for poor response to treatment. 67 demographic-matched controls will also be recruited as a comparison group - healthy controls will not receive antipsychotic medication. The investigator's previous studies have made progress in the understanding of abnormalities in the glutamate system and brain connectivity in unmedicated patients with schizophrenia and modulation of these by antipsychotic medication. Two indices of glutamatergic dysfunction have been identified. While antipsychotic medications appear to modulate glutamate, the disturbance in the relationship between metabolites is not restored with treatment. In addition, the investigators found that both structural and functional connectivity abnormalities in unmedicated patients with schizophrenia predict patients' response to treatment. To the investigator's knowledge, no other group has performed a study that uses a combination of complementary neuroimaging techniques that will allow generating a broad characterization of glutamatergic function and brain connectivity in first episode psychosis and change with treatment. The results of the proposed studies could suggest a mechanism by which the duration of untreated psychosis is associated with poor treatment response which might lead to new interventions to target the illness.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of aripiprazole in subjects with Bipolar 1 Disorder or Schizophrenia who have a history of suboptimal aderence and are currently on treatment with oral aripiprazole.

The aim of this study is to develop a scale to measure the severity of depression with psychotic symptoms (psychotic depression). Furthermore, we hope to detect potential biomarkers (substances in the blood) which can aid in the detection of psychotic depression. Main hypothesis: A clinically valid rating scale measuring the severity of psychotic depression can be developed.

Agitation is associated with a number of acute psychiatric conditions, and frequent in acute psychiatric admissions. It is associated with violence towards others, and strongly associated with in-patient suicides. The main aims of the study are to assess different clinical presentations of agitation at admittance, and to assess the consequences of these different clinical presentations during the first three days of the stay.

The aim of this study is to determine the clinical, genetic and environmental factors associated with the phenotype "severe psychotic symptoms" caused by cocaine.

A large number of studies have investigated the psychological disorders occurred in postpartum women, and found that postpartum psychosis is common in new mothers. However, the situation of paternal psychological status after they had their first baby is not assessed. The investigators hypothesized that they had a high occurrence of paternal psychosis after first baby born. In addition, different factors might influence its onset and development in new fathers.

The purpose of this study is to find out how prevalent unidentified Mental Health issues are in the pediatric population that visits the Emergency Department in an urban city.

The objective is to find determinants for the subjective and objective burden of informal caregivers to patients who are requiring continued antipsychotic treatment for functional psychoses among factors related to the patient, the health care and support provision system and the informal caregiver him/her-self.

This is the second phase (Phase B) of the main project "Bank for Thoughts", which has the following aims: Improvement of software for secured (encrypted and access-controlled) asynchronous text-based communication within health services. (Adjustments for use in psychiatry.) Open clinical trials with Internet-mediated psychotherapy or counselling in out-patient child and adolescent psychiatry. Development of indications and precautions for text-based Internet-mediated psychotherapy.