Staging of Dementia Severity With the Hong Kong Version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (HK-MoCA)'s.

BACKGROUND: The Hong Kong version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (HK-MoCA) has been used to screen for dementia, but it has not been validated to delineate the stages of Alzheimer disease (AD). This study aimed to determine the cut-off score ranges for mild, moderate, and severe AD. METHODS: The HK-MoCA score was matched against the Clinical Dementia Rating on 155 patients with AD. Investigators performing the HK-MoCA and Clinical Dementia Rating were blinded to each other. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis was used to determine the cut-off scores between different stages of AD (mild, moderate, and severe stage). A secondary analysis with adjustments for age and education received were also performed. RESULT: The cut-off score in HK-MoCA was ≤4 for those with severe AD (sensitivity 84.4%, specificity 91.9%, area under curve=0.92, P<0.001) and 5 to 9 for those with moderate AD (sensitivity 86.3%, specificity of 93.3%, area under curve=0.953, P<0.001). With adjustments for age and education, the cut-off score for moderate AD was adjusted to 5 to 8, whereas the cut-off score for severe AD remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: The severity of AD could be delineated using the HK-MoCA for the Cantonese-speaking population in Hong Kong, and the effect of education on the cut-off score needs further investigation.

Clinical risk model to predict 28-day unplanned readmission via the accident and emergency department after discharge from acute psychiatric units for patients with psychotic spectrum disorders.

BACKGROUND: Unplanned readmissions rates are an important indicator of the quality of care provided in a psychiatric unit. However, there is no validated risk model to predict this outcome in patients with psychotic spectrum disorders. AIMS: This paper aims to establish a clinical risk prediction model to predict 28-day unplanned readmission via the accident and emergency department after discharge from acute psychiatric units for patients with psychotic spectrum disorders. METHOD: Adult patients with psychotic spectrum disorders discharged within a 5-year period from all psychiatric units in Hong Kong were included in this study. Information on the socioeconomic background, past medical and psychiatric history, current discharge episode and Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS) scores were used in a logistic regression to derive the risk model and the predictive variables. The sample was randomly split into two to derive (n = 10 219) and validate (n = 10 643) the model. RESULTS: The rate of unplanned readmission was 7.09%. The risk factors for unplanned readmission include higher number of previous admissions, comorbid substance misuse, history of violence and a score of one or more in the discharge HoNOS overactivity or aggression item. Protective factors include older age, prescribing clozapine, living with family and relatives after discharge and imposition of conditional discharge. The model had moderate discriminative power with a c-statistic of 0.705 and 0.684 on the derivation and validation data-set. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of readmission for each patient can be identified and adjustments in the treatment for those with a high risk may be implemented to prevent this undesirable outcome.

The future of psychiatric education.

Mental health disorders cause a large burden on global public health, with many patients living years with the disability. However, many doctors are ill-equipped to treat mental health disorders given inadequate training during their undergraduate years. In some countries, psychiatry is even considered an elective course rather than a core module. There is, therefore, a pressing need to improve the training of medical students in managing mental health disorders. Measures need to be implemented to attract students to choose psychiatry as their career. Given the developments in the fields and the challenges currently faced by trainees and early career psychiatrists, changes may also be made to the training programme in the postgraduate stage to unify the variations across the world in terms of the training duration and format. This paper will describe the ways that undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatry training may be ameliorated to improve the delivery of mental healthcare around the world and to equip doctors to face challenges in the future.

The Future of Digital Psychiatry.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Treatments in psychiatry have been rapidly changing over the last century, following the development of psychopharmacology and new research achievements. However, with advances in technology, the practice of psychiatry in the future will likely be influenced by new trends based on computerized approaches and digital communication. We examined four major areas that will probably impact on the clinical practice in the next few years: telepsychiatry; social media; mobile applications and internet of things; artificial intelligence; and machine learning. RECENT FINDINGS: Developments in these four areas will benefit patients throughout the journey of the illness, encompassing early diagnosis, even before the patients present to a clinician; personalized treatment on demand at anytime and anywhere; better prediction on patient outcomes; and even how mental illnesses are diagnosed in the future. Though the evidence for many technology-based interventions or mobile applications is still insufficient, it is likely that such advances in technology will play a larger role in the way that patient receives mental health interventions in the future, leading to easier access to them and improved outcomes.

Fever as a predictor of doctor shopping in the paediatric population.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate prevalence and assess factors associated with doctor shopping among caregivers of children acutely admitted to a hospital in Hong Kong, and examine the reasons for such behaviour and caregivers' awareness of its possible dangers. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study with face-to-face surveys. SETTING: A paediatric unit in a teaching hospital in Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS: Caregivers of children admitted to acute paediatric wards between April and July 2011. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES; Socio-demographic characteristics of the interviewee, personal history and clinical data of the patient, presence of doctor shopping (consulting more than one doctor for medical advice without referral) for each episode, the reasons behind such behaviour, and awareness of potential dangers. Data retrieved were analysed to estimate the prevalence and logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with doctor shopping. RESULTS: In all, 649 such patients were admitted into hospital during the study period, of which 336 were recruited, with about a half being absent or given home leave. Thirty-four patients were excluded due to absent caregivers or refusal, and 302 were included in the study. More than half (79.5%) were female and the caregivers' monthly household incomes were between HK$10 001 and HK$15 000 (21.2%), similar to the median household income in Hong Kong. The prevalence of doctor shopping was 53%. The only significant clinical parameter associated with doctor shopping was presence of fever (odds ratio=2.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.4-3.9). Persistence of symptoms was the commonest reason given by interviewees for doctor shopping, and the majority (75.5%) were unaware of the possible dangers of this behaviour. CONCLUSION: Doctor shopping is highly prevalent among caregivers of children with acute paediatric conditions. Most caregivers do not know the potential complications of this behaviour. Further measures should be taken to educate subjects on the associated dangers of this behaviour and the natural course of acute illnesses with fever.