View clinical trials related to Psychiatric Disorders.
Filter by:Oxytocin (OXT) is currently regarded as a crucial neuropeptide in the mediation of various human social behaviors, e.g. social affiliation, social recognition, and the modulation of anxiety, mood, and aggression. An impairment of social behavior, emotional regulation as well as increased stress reactions are characteristic of several psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, social anxiety and PTSD, in which there is also some evidence for OXT dysfunction. The startle reflex is a basic defensive reaction that can be modulated by emotional stimuli. The investigation of the startle reflex and of its modulation is a well-validated method to test stress reactions and emotional regulation. These processes are impaired in the same psychiatric diseases, in which OXT dysfunction was evidenced. Although previous animal studies showed that the dysfunction of brain OXT systems might be implicated in startle reflex and in its modulation, no study has been performed yet in human that investigated the influence of OXT administration on the startle response and on its affective modulation. A first aim of this study is to investigate the influence of OXT on stress reactivity and emotional modulation in healthy humans. A second aim is to develop a method for the investigation of anxiety disorders. Fifty male healthy participants will be tested using a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled cross-over design in two occasions; once with administration of 24 IU OXT, and once with placebo using nasal sprays while performing a computer-based experiment, in which emotional pictures and auditory startle probes are presented. We will measure the subject's subjective ratings of the pictures as well as the facial EMG activation, heart rate and electrodermal activation throughout the study. This project offers a unique opportunity to study the relationship between the OXT system and basic motivational and emotional behaviors. The investigation of these mechanisms is in turn greatly worthwhile, not only for understanding of the neurochemical and physiological processes involved in emotional regulation, but also for the comprehension of the neuroendocrine and neurophysiological mechanismsunderlying anxiety disorders. In the long term, it could open the possibilities of OXT as a psychobiological therapeutics of psychiatric disorders.
During the past decade, the dramatic change in patterns of both psychiatric diagnoses and prescription of psychotropic agents has been noted since the introduction of newer antidepressant drugs. In the meantime, suicide has been recognized as a major public health problem all over the world. Research efforts have hence been spent in exploring the interrelationships between suicide rates and prescription of antidepressant drugs (as a proxy for the treatment of depression). However, most available studies came from developed countries despite that the majority of countries with rising suicide rates during the past decade were developing countries. Both suicide rates and prescription of antidepressant agents have been rising in Taiwan during the past decade; with a reliable mortality registrar and nationwide health insurance covering 99% of its population, Taiwan is distinctive in realizing a large-scale analysis on these interrelationships between suicide and prescription of antidepressant drugs. However, there has been no study in Taiwan exploring these potential associations up to now. This study aims at examining the interrelationships between suicide rates and prescription of antidepressant agents based on the health insurance data from persons who had diagnoses of ICD: 290-319 or were prescribed with antidepressant agents during the period from 1998 to 2006. The investigators plan to first perform correlation analyses between the trends of suicide rates and prescription of antidepressants during the study period after taking into accounts potential confounding factors; analyses by age, gender groups and by administrative regions will also be performed. Besides, the investigators plan to analyze the change in the prescription pattern of psychotropic agents in Taiwan during the study period, with the particular focus on that of newer antidepressant drugs. The prescription of psychotropic agents in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric diagnoses will be explored.
Risperidone is an important medication used to treat children with psychiatric illnesses or neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism. Despite excellent symptom control, the potential for side effects is worrisome. Treating these disorders is difficult because not everyone responds the same way to the same risperidone dose. One reason for this is genetic differences in how people break down the drug. Understanding these differences will help clinicians choose a dose and better predict the response so patients will be treated successfully with a lower risk for side effects. This study will research these genetic differences in children with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders. Hypothesis: The inter-patient variability in risperidone pharmacokinetics and exposure, adverse events, and clinical response in patients with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders is associated with identifiable pharmacogenetic factors, such as CYP2D6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
Psychiatric consultation and short-term follow-up will produce equivalent clinical outcomes and be less costly when provided via videoconferencing (telepsychiatry) than when provided in-person.
This is the second phase (Phase B) of the main project "Bank for Thoughts", which has the following aims: 1. Improvement of software for secured (encrypted and access-controlled) asynchronous text-based communication within health services. (Adjustments for use in psychiatry.) 2. Open clinical trials with Internet-mediated psychotherapy or counselling in out-patient child and adolescent psychiatry. 3. Development of indications and precautions for text-based Internet-mediated psychotherapy.
Children receiving IFT (intensive family therapy) were assessed for symptom profile and global functioning before admission, 3 months after discharge and 1 year after discharge. Children were assessed by parents, children, their teachers and themselves. Parents were assessed by themselves at the same points in time through psychological self-report questionnaires. The study is intended to explore covariates to change in children as well as in parents during (pre-treatment) the treatment and follow-up periods.
Psychiatric patients under the mental impaired influences, their living function were disabled, and their social lives were handicapped consequently. Idea psychiatric treatment is to control the psychiatric symptoms in a better way, to develop efficient psychiatric adjustment, to manage living stress into a lower level, to gradually develop the meaning and value of the patients’ lives, and to obtain the satisfaction and happiness in life for them. In order to investigate the satisfaction for psychiatric patients under the current treatment and to evaluate their psychiatric health, it is necessary to measure the mental health status for the psychiatric patients, and to ensure the ideological status of psychiatric treatment. If there is a mental health measurement for the psychiatric patients, we may precisely identify the mental health levels of the patients and their mental disturbances degrees. Accordingly, we may develop efficient procedure to manage the mental health for the psychiatric patients, and to achieve the goal for the idea psychiatric treatment. In this study, we established the mental health assessment data sheet according to the clinical experiences. It includes mental health index data sheet, mental-and-physical stress response data sheet, mental sustentation data sheet, and supplemented with a general living satisfaction assessment data sheet. We will evaluate the reliability and validity of this study to ensure the usability of these data sheet in clinics. We will also recruit the continuous treated and mentally stabilized patients as subjects. After obtaining their written informed consents, we will go through these mental health assessments to discover the mental health status of these psychiatric patients, and use it as a reference to develop idea psychiatric treatment. We will use ICC test for the repeated measurement validity, Pearson r correlation coefficient within our data analyses to evaluate the validity of the same measurement, and independent t-test to assess the differences between the patient group and the society group (from previously established data files). This study result may evaluate the possible deficits existing in the traditional psychiatric treatment and may be used as a reference for the development of idea psychiatric medicine.