Active clinical trials for "Psychotic Disorders"

Negative symptoms and cognitive deficits are two partially-related features of schizophrenia which have a major negative impact on social function and objective quality of life. Standard drug treatments have little impact on either and arguably no effect on primary negative symptoms. Social dysfunction has major economic consequences in both the developed and developing world. There is evidence that anti-inflammatory treatment may have beneficial effects in patients with schizophrenia.

People with serious mental illness have difficulty making good use of primary care, and die, on average, years earlier than others in the population. The greatest contributors to this premature mortality are medical illnesses, especially cardiovascular disease and cancer. The Patient Centered Medical Home is a model for reorganizing primary care practice so that healthcare is more effective, efficient, and user-friendly. It has been implemented across VA as the, "Patient Aligned Care Team" (PACT). It is unclear, however, how this PACT model applies to people whose predominant illness is treated by specialists. This is the case for people with serious mental illness (SMI), many of whom receive ongoing treatment at mental health clinics. To achieve optimal health outcomes in the population with SMI, it may be necessary to adapt the PACT model so that it includes approaches that have proven to improve healthcare in this population. This project implements an adapted "SMI-PACT" model, and evaluates its effect on Veterans with SMI.

Individuals with serious mental illness have greater morbidity from physical illness and mortality than the general population, but tend not to initiate or sustain engagement in health promotion interventions. Although promising weight management and wellness interventions have been developed for this population, they are very intensive and tend to have low enrollment, high attrition, and low reach. This pilot study will investigate a novel low-demand intervention that may be initially more acceptable, the Get Moving and Get Well! (GMGW) program. The primary objectives of the proposed study are to investigate the effects of participation in the GMGW program on measures of behavioral activation, self-efficacy, physical activity, general physical and mental health, mood, participants' intent to engage in more intensive physical health interventions, and actual engagement in those programs. Results of this pilot study will inform a future full-scale study of GMGW.

Major depressive episodes (MDEs) occur frequently during the course of psychotic disorders, and several antidepressive agents have been successfully applied. The new melatonergic antidepressant agomelatine (AGO) appears promising for the treatment of MDEs in schizophrenia for several reasons. The investigators plan to test the efficacy and tolerability of AGO for antidepressive treatment in schizophrenia. For this task, the investigators plan to enrol 27 schizophrenic patients into an open, single-armed, prospective clinical trial with agomelatine.

The purpose of this study is to assess the maintenance of antipsychotic efficacy and safety of risperidone long-acting injectable (RLAI) in patients with schizophrenia (psychiatric disorder with symptoms of emotional instability, detachment from reality, often with delusions and hallucinations, and withdrawal into the self) or schizoaffective (a mixed psychiatric disorder relating to a complex psychotic state that has features of both schizophrenia and a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder) disorder who were receiving treatment with any antipsychotic medication and who required a long-term antipsychotic therapy. The secondary aim is to investigate prospectively (a study that starts with the present condition of a population of individuals and follows them into the future) the prevalence of patients who met standardized remission criteria (according to Andreasen et al. criteria) and the psychopathological, psychosocial and subjective predictors of achieving remission.

There is increasing clinical and molecular evidence for the role of hormones and specifically estrogen and its receptor in schizophrenia. A selective estrogen receptor modulator, raloxifene, stimulates estrogen-like activity in brain and can improve cognition in older adults. The present study will test the extent to which adjunctive raloxifene treatment improved cognition and reduced symptoms in young to middle-age men and women with schizophrenia. 110 patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder will be recruited in a multicenter twelve-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial of adjunctive 120mg raloxifene treatment in addition to their usual antipsychotic medications. The investigators hypothesize that daily treatment with raloxifene 120 milligrams (mg) in addition to antipsychotic treatment improves cognition, reduces psychotic symptoms, increases social and personal functioning and reduces health care costs, as compared to placebo.

This is a randomised controlled trial which investigates the effectiveness of CARMS (Cognitive AppRoaches to coMbatting Suicidality) therapy in reducing suicidal thoughts and how well CARMS works in practice within the NHS. The trial will compare two groups of people with psychosis who are using NHS mental health services. One group will carry on with their usual treatment. The other group will be offered 24 weekly sessions of CARMS therapy, plus their usual treatment.

Rationale: There is growing consensus that targeting negative symptoms such as social withdrawal is essential to be able to preserve social participation, thereby reducing the high yearly costs of schizophrenia. Aaron T. Beck, founder of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and colleagues have developed and investigated a new CBT approach, in which they target inactivity in a chronic schizophrenia population with severe negative symptoms The therapy is based on accumulating evidence that dysfunctional beliefs in conjunction with neurocognitive impairments can impede social functioning. These results suggest that CBT can be highly successful in establishing clinically meaningful improvements. However, the therapy has not yet been investigated in a recent-onset population. Objective: To evaluate the applicability and (cost-) effectiveness of a shortened, partly group based, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy focussing on social activation (CBTsa) in patients with recent onset schizophrenia. Hypotheses: 1) the investigators hypothesized that CBT focused on social activation (CBTsa) in a recent-onset population will result in a substantial reduction in severity of negative symptoms, in particular social withdrawal. 2) The investigators expected that CBTsa would lead to an improvement in terms of Quality of Life and overall functioning. 3) The investigators expected this intervention to result in a reduction in need for care and QALY gain as a consequence of improvement in symptoms and social functioning. Study design: Single blind randomized controlled trial with 6 month-follow up. Study population: Patients between 18 and 35 years old with negative symptoms of at least moderate severity, and who have been recently (< 2yrs) diagnosed with schizophrenia. Intervention (if applicable): Individual and group-based CBT intervention targeting social withdrawal. Main study parameters/endpoints: Change in negative symptoms, Social functioning, and quality of life, Productivity losses.

This randomised three-arm study aims to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of a cognitive behavioral therapy (INT-Integrated Neurocognitive Therapy for Schizophrenia Patients) in the treatment of schizophrenia patients in an inpatient setting. The intervention will be compared with an active comparator (IPT- Integrated Psychological Therapy) and a control condition. Overall the study will include 90 patients (30 in each arm). Each patient will receive at least 16 sessions of the respective treatment. Baseline and follow up assessments up to 12 months after the intervention will investigate the stability of treatment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Lu AF35700 on electrical activity in the heart as measured on an electrocardiogram (ECG) in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder after 6 weeks of treatment