The societal cost of treatment-seeking patients with borderline personality disorder in Germany.

According to previous research, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with high cost-of-illness. However, there is still a shortage of cost-of-illness-studies assessing costs from a broad societal perspective, including direct and indirect costs. Further, there are considerable differences in the results among the existing studies. In the present study, 167 German men and women seeking specialized outpatient treatment for BPD were included. We assessed societal cost-of-illness bottom-up through structured face-to-face interviews and encompassed a wide range of cost components. All costs were calculated for the 2015 price level. Cost-of-illness amounted to € 31,130 per patient and year preceding disorder-specific outpatient treatment. € 17,044 (54.8%) were direct costs that were mostly related to hospital treatment. Indirect costs amounted to € 14,086 (45.2%). Within indirect costs, costs related to work disability were the most crucial cost driver. The present study underlines the tremendous economic burden of BPD. According to the present study, both the direct and indirect costs are of significant importance for the societal costs associated with BPD. Besides the need for more disorder-specific treatment facilities for men and women with BPD, we assume that education and employment are topics that should be specifically targeted and individually supported at an early stage of treatment.Trial Registration: German Clinical Trial Registration, DRKS00011534, Date of Registration: 11/01/2017, retrospectively registered.

Effectiveness and safety of the adjunctive use of an internet-based self-management intervention for borderline personality disorder in addition to care as usual: results from a randomised controlled trial.

IMPORTANCE: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental disorder that is often inadequately treated. OBJECTIVE: To determine if adding a self-management intervention to care as usual (CAU) is effective and safe. DESIGN: Randomised, controlled, rater-blind trial. Duration of treatment and assessments: 12 months. SETTING: Secondary care, recruited mainly via the internet. PARTICIPANTS: Patients with BPD and BPD Severity Index (BPDSI) of at least 15. INTERVENTIONS: CAU by treating psychiatrist and/or psychotherapist alone or adjunctive use of an internet-based self-management intervention that is based on schema therapy (priovi). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Outcomes were assessed by trained raters. The primary outcome was change in BPDSI. The safety outcome was the number of serious adverse events (SAEs). The primary outcome time point was 12 months after randomisation. RESULTS: Of 383 participants assessed for eligibility, 204 were included (91.7% female, mean age: 32.4 years; 74% were in psychotherapy and 26% were in psychiatric treatment). The slope of BPDSI change did not differ significantly between groups from baseline to 12 months (F3,248= 1.857, p=0.14). At 12 months, the within-group effect sizes were d=1.38 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.68) for the intervention group and d=1.02 (95% CI 0.73 to 1.31) for the control group. The between-group effect size was d=0.27 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.55) in the intention-to-treat sample and d=0.39 (95% CI 0.09 to 0.68) for those who used the intervention for at least 3 hours (per-protocol sample). We found no significant differences in SAEs. CONCLUSIONS: We have not found a significant effect in favour of the intervention. This might be due to the unexpectedly large effect in the group receiving CAU by a psychiatrist and/or psychotherapist alone. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT03418142.

Assessment of the impact of sex in intensity, skin flares and central processing of histaminergic itch-A pilot study.

Itch is the commonest skin-related symptom, and sex differences are increasingly recognised as important determinants in stratified medicine, but only little is known about sex differences in itch. Questionnaire-based studies indicated that women perceive itch as more intensive and bothersome in comparison with men. However, data of studies using standardised itch models to objectify sex differences are scarce and inconsistent. To determine sex differences in intensity, skin flares and central processing of histaminergic itch, we compared 15 female and 15 male healthy subjects in a double-blinded, within-subject, placebo-controlled study using a histamine skin prick itch model (histamine 1% applied onto the volar forearm) and functional MRI. We found trends in higher mean itch intensity (0.58 VAS, CI 95% 0.004-1.19, P = .056) and maximum itch intensity (men 3.93 VAS ± 0.39 SD at 3 minutes, women 4.73 VAS ± 0.31 SD at 4 minutes, P = .073) in women paralleled by a trend in a stronger positive correlation between itch intensity and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity in brain structures identified during itch in comparison with men (rs in women: .46, P = .08, rs in men: .07, P = .79). The erythema and wheal following histamine skin pricking were (non-significantly) larger in men, indicating that higher mean itch intensities on the right volar forearm in women may not be explained by more intense flares. The comparison of the activation patterns between the sexes revealed increased activity in men compared to women in the left middle temporal gyrus (temporooccipital part)/lateral occipital cortex. Thus, our findings indicate that histaminergic itch perception and central itch processing differ between the sexes under standardised conditions.

Psychopathology Assessment Methods Revisited: On Translational Cross-Validation of Clinical Self-Evaluation Scale and fMRI.

We present in this article a study design that combines clinical self-assessment scale, simultaneously administered with fMRI data acquisition. We have used a standard block-design with two different conditions. Each active block consisted of four text statements (items), alternating diagnostically specific (DS) blocks comprising items from von Zerssen depression scale and diagnostically neutral (DN) blocks with items from a questionnaire about general interests. All items were rated on four degree Likert scale, and patients provided responses with corresponding four buttons during the fMRI session. Our results demonstrated that in healthy controls, contrasting the two types of stimuli yielded no residual activations, e.g., the DS did not produce significantly different activations compared to the DN stimuli. Furthermore, the correlation analyses did not find a relationship between brain activations and the total score of the DS statements in this group. However, contrasting the DS stimuli to the DN stimuli in the patients produced significant residual activations in several brain regions: right pre- and postcentral gyrus (including right supramarginal gyrus), left middle frontal gyrus, triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus. The left precuneus demonstrated correlations with the patients' DS score. In the between-group comparisons, we found residual activations in the right pre- and postcentral gyrus, right supplementary motor area, medial segment of the right precentral gyrus, right superior parietal lobule, left middle frontal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, left occipital pole. Our results confirm the possibility of translational cross-validation of a clinical psychological test (von Zerssen's depression scale) and fMRI. At this stage, however, we can only confirm the sensitivity of the method (its ability to distinguish healthy controls from depressed patients), but we cannot conclude anything about its specificity (distinction from different psychopathology conditions).

Perceived Dangerousness as Related to Psychiatric Symptoms and Psychiatric Service Use - a Vignette Based Representative Population Survey.

Perceptions of dangerousness are an influential component of mental health stigma and can be driven by the display of psychiatric symptoms and the use of psychiatric service institutions. Yet, no previous study compared symptoms and service use associated perceptions of dangerousness. Therefore, we conducted a representative survey (N = 2,207) in the canton of Basel-Stadt, Switzerland. Participants were asked to answer the perceived dangerousness scale with respect to a vignette that either depicted psychiatric symptoms of a fictitious character or a psychiatric service institution the fictitious character had been admitted to. Between the vignettes, type of symptoms, type of psychiatric service, dangerousness, and gender were systematically varied. Perceived dangerousness was significantly lower as related to psychiatric service use than related to psychiatric symptoms. Overall, symptoms of alcohol dependency, behavior endangering others, and male gender of the fictitious character tend to increase perceived dangerousness. Furthermore, being hospitalized in a psychiatric unit at a general hospital or the rater being familiar with psychiatric services tends to decrease perceived dangerousness. Effective anti-stigma initiatives should integrate education about dangerousness as well as methods to increase familiarity with psychiatry. Additionally, an integration of modern psychiatry in somato-medical care institutions might decrease stigmatization.

Hippocampal volume in subjects at high risk of psychosis: a longitudinal MRI study.

INTRODUCTION: The hippocampal formation has been studied extensively in schizophrenic psychoses and alterations in hippocampal anatomy have been consistently reported. Chronic schizophrenia seems to be associated with bilateral hippocampal volume (HV) reduction, while in patients with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) there are contradictory results. This is the first region of interest (ROI) based follow-up MRI study of hippocampal volume comparing ARMS individuals with and without transition to psychosis. The aim was to investigate the timing of HV changes in ARMS in the early phase of psychosis. METHODS: Magnetic resonance imaging data from 18 antipsychotic-naïve individuals with an ARMS were collected within the FePsy-clinic for early detection of psychoses. During follow-up 8 subjects transitioned to psychosis (ARMS-T) and 10 did not (ARMS-NT). Subjects were re-scanned after the onset of psychosis or at the end of the follow-up if they did not develop psychosis. RESULTS: Across both groups there was a significant decrease in HV over time (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in progression between ARMS-T and ARMS-NT. Antipsychotic medication at follow up was associated with increased HV (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We found a decrease of HV over time in subjects with an ARMS, independently of clinical outcome. We may speculate that the decrease of HV over time might reflect brain degeneration processes.