[Functional remission of people with serious mental illness (SMI): psychometric properties of a new ROM-instrument]. / Functionele remissie bij mensen met een ernstige psychiatrische aandoening; psychometrische eigenschappen van een nieuw ROM-instrument.

BACKGROUND: Instruments are used for routine outcome monitoring of patients with severe mental illness in order to measure psychiatric symptoms, care needs and quality of life. By adding an instrument for measuring functional remission a more complete picture can be given of the complaints, the symptoms and general functioning, which can give direction to providing care for patients with severe mental illness. AIM: To describe the development and testing of a new instrument of functional remission (FR) among people with a psychotic disorder or another serious mental disorder (SMI) as an addition to the symptomatic remission (SR), according to international criteria. METHOD: The FR-assessment involves assessment by a mental health professional who conducts a semi-structured interview with the patient and his or her family and/or uses patient files relating to the three areas of functioning: daily living and self-care; work, study and housekeeping; and social contacts. These areas are rated on a three-point scale of 0: independent; 1: partially independent; 2: dependent. The assessment covers a period of six months, in accordance with the measurement of symptomatic remission and should be part of regular routine outcome monitoring (ROM) procedures. The FR-instrument was used in 2012 with 840 patients from eight Dutch mental care institutions and included a one-year follow-up among 523 patients (response 62%). RESULTS: The results showed that the instrument is relatively easily to complete. It was also relevant for clinical practice, although further research is needed because of the raters' low response. Intra- and inter-rater reliability, discriminating and convergent validity, and sensitivity to change were rated sufficient to good. CONCLUSION: If the FR-instrument becomes part of regular ROM-procedures and is used as a measure of societal participation, it could be a useful addition to current measures of symptomatic remission.

Symptomatic remission in psychosis and real-life functioning.

BACKGROUND: In 2005 Andreasen proposed criteria for remission in schizophrenia. It is unclear whether these criteria reflect symptom reduction and improved social functioning in daily life. AIMS: To investigate whether criteria for symptomatic remission reflect symptom reduction and improved functioning in real life, comparing patients meeting remission criteria, patients not meeting these criteria and healthy controls. METHOD: The Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a structured diary technique, was used to explore real-life symptoms and functioning in 177 patients with (remitted and non-remitted) schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 148 controls. RESULTS: Of 177 patients, 70 met criteria for symptomatic remission. These patients reported significantly fewer positive and negative symptoms and better mood states compared with patients not in remission. Furthermore, patients in remission spent more time in goal-directed activities and had less preference for being alone when they were with others. However, the patient groups did not differ on time spent in social company and doing nothing, and both the remission and non-remission groups had lower scores on functional outcome measures compared with the control group. CONCLUSIONS: The study provides an ecological validation for the symptomatic remission criteria, showing that patients who met the criteria reported fewer positive symptoms, better mood states and partial recovery of reward experience compared with those not in remission. However, remission status was not related to functional recovery, suggesting that the current focus on symptomatic remission may reflect an overly restricted goal.

Experience sampling research in individuals with mental illness: reflections and guidance.

OBJECTIVE: The experience sampling method (ESM) represents a valuable way of assessing clinical phenomena in real world settings and across time. Despite its theoretical advantages, using this methodology in psychiatric populations is challenging. This paper acts as a guide to researchers wishing to employ this approach when investigating mental illness. METHOD: The contents represent the opinions of researchers around the United Kingdom and the Netherlands who are experienced at using the ESM. RESULTS: In ESM studies, participants are required to fill in questions about their current thoughts, feelings and experiences when prompted by an electronic device (e.g. a wristwatch, PDA). Entries are typically made at fixed or random intervals over 6 days. This article outlines how to design and validate an ESM diary. We then discuss which sampling procedure to use and how to increase compliance through effective briefing and telephone sessions. Debriefing, data management and analytical issues are considered, before suggestions for future clinical uses of the ESM are made. CONCLUSION: The last decade has seen an increase in the number of studies employing the ESM in clinical research. Further research is needed to examine the optimal equipment and procedure for different clinical groups.

[Routine Outcome Monitoring for patients with severe mental illness: a consensus document]. / Routine outcome monitoring voor patiënten met ernstige psychiatrische aandoeningen; een consensusdocument.

BACKGROUND: Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) means the assessment of the patient's condition on a routine basis using instruments. So far there is no consensus about which instruments should be used for ROM with severely mentally ill patients (ROM-SMI). AIM: To reach a consensus about instruments for ROM-SMI in the Netherlands and Belgium and to create possibilities for comparison of ROM data. METHOD: This article discusses the consensus document of the National Remission Working Group for ROM in patients with smi and covers the following topics: reasons for ROM-SMI, domains for ROM-SMI and appropriate instruments, logistics and analyses of the data. RESULTS: Patients with SMI have problems in several domains. These can be assessed by collecting information about psychiatric symptoms, addiction, somatic problems, general functioning, needs, quality of life and care satisfaction. Potential instruments for ROM-SMI are short, valid, reliable and assess several domains, taking the patient's perspective into account, and have been used in national and international research. The working group advises institutions to choose from a limited set of instruments. After the scores have been aggregated and standardised, comparisons can be drawn. ROM-SMI data can be interpreted more meaningfully, if outcome data are supplemented with data regarding patient characteristics and the treatment interventions already applied. CONCLUSION: It should be possible to reach a consensus about instruments for ROM-SMI and the way in which they should be used. The use of identical instruments will lead to improvements in mental health care and create possibilities for comparison (benchmarking) and research.

[Can the "Camberwell Assessment of Need" predict changes in care consumption?]. / Voorspelt de Camberwell Assessment of Need (verandering in) psychiatrische zorgconsumptie?

BACKGROUND: Because of the shift in the Dutch psychiatric care system towards care based on actual need, we should have some kind of instrument for assessing the future need for care. The Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN) is such an instrument. It is particularly useful when there is a clear link between the need for care and the consumption of care. AIM: To study whether the can is a predictor of (changes in) care consumption. METHOD: The Maastricht Cumulative Needs for Care Monitor (CNCM) involves an interview with all patients with psychotic disorders who are in care in the Maastricht region. The interview takes place at intake and thereafter annually. The main instrument of the CNCM is the CAN, but other instruments are also included. CNCM data are matched with care consumption data extracted from the Psychiatric Case Register South Limburg, including both care consumption in the year before and in the year after the CNCM assessment. RESULTS: Patients with intermediate or higher levels of need for care were found to use more inpatient care than patients with lower levels of need for care. In addition, the results showed that a high level of need for care was a predictor of shifts from low inpatient care consumption to high inpatient care consumption, although statistically imprecise by conventional alpha. CONCLUSION: The CAN may well be a valuable instrument for assessing future inpatient care consumption.

Exploring the use of Routine Outcome Monitoring in the treatment of patients with a psychotic disorder.

BACKGROUND: Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) has become part of the treatment process in mental health care. However, studies have indicated that few clinicians in psychiatry use the outcome of ROM in their daily work. The aim of this study was to explore the degree of ROM use in clinical practice as well as the explanatory factors of this use. METHODS: In the Northern Netherlands, a ROM-protocol (ROM-Phamous) for patients with a psychotic disorder has been implemented. To establish the degree of ROM-Phamous use in clinical practice, the ROM results of patients (n=204) were compared to the treatment goals formulated in their treatment plans. To investigate factors that might influence ROM use, clinicians (n=32) were asked to fill out a questionnaire about ROM-Phamous. RESULTS: Care domains that were problematic according to the ROM-Phamous results were mentioned in the treatment plan in 28% of cases on average (range 5-45%). The use of ROM-Phamous in the treatment process varies considerably among clinicians. Most of the clinicians find ROM-Phamous both useful and important for good clinical practice. In contrast, the perceived ease-of-use is low and most clinicians report insufficient time to use ROM-Phamous. CONCLUSIONS: More frequent ROM use should be facilitated in clinicians. This could be achieved by improving the fit with clinical routines and the ease-of-use of ROM systems. It is important for all stakeholders to invest in integrating ROM in clinical practice. Eventually, this might improve the diagnostics and treatment of patients in mental health care.

Emotional reactivity to daily life stress in psychosis.

BACKGROUND: The vulnerability-stress model of psychotic disorders describes, in essence, an interaction between personal vulnerability and environmental stressors. The present study investigated this interaction and studied emotional reactivity to daily life stress as a vulnerability marker for psychotic illness. METHODS: Patients with psychotic illness (n = 42), their first-degree relatives (n = 47), and control subjects (n = 49) were studied with the Experience Sampling Method (a structured diary technique assessing thoughts, current context, and mood in daily life) to assess (1) appraised subjective stress of daily events and smaller disturbances in daily life and (2) emotional reactivity conceptualized as changes in both negative affect and positive affect. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analyses showed that an increase in subjective stress was associated with an increase in negative affect and a decrease in positive affect in all groups. However, the groups differed quantitatively in their pattern of reactions to stress. Patients with psychotic illness reacted with more intense emotions to subjective appraisals of stress in daily life than control subjects. The decrease in positive affect in the relatives was similar to that of the patients, while the increase in negative affect in this group was intermediary to that of patients and control subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Higher levels of familial risk for psychosis were associated with higher levels of emotional reactivity to daily life stress in a dose-response fashion. Subtle alterations in the way persons interact with their environment may constitute part of the vulnerability for psychotic illness.

Sex differences in emotional reactivity to daily life stress in psychosis.

BACKGROUND: The expression of schizophrenia has been reported to differ between the sexes. The current study investigates whether these sex differences in clinical expression are reflected in one underlying mechanism that may be causally related to psychosis, namely increases in stress sensitivity in daily life. METHOD: Forty-two participants (22 men, 20 women) with Research Diagnostic Criteria-defined psychotic disorder in a state of clinical remission were studied with the Experience Sampling Method (a structured diary technique assessing current context and mood in daily life) to assess (1) appraised subjective stress related to daily events and activities and (2) emotional reactivity conceptualized as changes in both negative affect and positive affect in relation to the subjective stress. Data were collected from January 1997 to May 1999. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analyses revealed that women reported a significantly (p < .05) increased emotional reactivity to daily life stress compared with men, reflected in both an increase in negative affect and a decrease in positive affect. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that gender differences may not be limited to the characteristics of psychosis but may also be reflected in underlying etiologic mechanisms. Furthermore, these results might strengthen the hypothesis that women are more susceptible than men to a schizoaffective expression of schizophrenia.

Time, context, and subjective experiences in schizophrenia.

Systematic investigations into the experience of schizophrenic patients as they react and adapt to social environments are rare. Yet such information is extremely useful for understanding the psychopathology of schizophrenia, the planning of treatments, as well as for creating optimal treatment and living environments. In this study, dynamic fluctuations of mental state, social context, and experience in the daily life of schizophrenic patients were measured. Data were collected using the Experience Sampling Method on nine schizophrenic subjects and seven nonpsychiatric controls. Schizophrenic patients spent more time alone than normal--a difference that was largely created by the subsample of outpatients; hospitalized patients were less alone. As a group, the patients felt best when they were with one to three persons. The most troublesome condition reported was being alone or being in the company of more than three people. Three cases are presented to illustrate the individual variability of subjects' experience.

Schizophrenia patients are more emotionally active than is assumed based on their behavior.

Flat affect is a core symptom of schizophrenia. To date, researchers have focused primarily on emotional expression. Only recently has the emotional experience of patients with schizophrenia been studied in laboratory settings. The goal of this study is to assess emotional experience in the complex world of daily life. A structured time-sampling technique, the Experience Sampling Method, was used to collect data. Schizophrenia subjects (n = 58) were compared to 65 nonpatient controls. Patients were divided into blunted and nonblunted subgroups on the basis of Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) behavioral ratings of flat affect. Schizophrenia subjects experienced more intense and more variable negative emotions than controls. For the positive emotions, we found less intensity and less variability in the schizophrenia subjects. No difference in patterns of affect was found between the blunted and the nonblunted schizophrenia subgroups. Our findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia are more emotionally active than has been assumed based on behavioral observations.

Does the peak-end phenomenon observed in laboratory pain studies apply to real-world pain in rheumatoid arthritics?

Laboratory studies and investigations of patients undergoing painful procedures have compared recalled pain to an average of multiple momentary reports taken throughout the painful experience. This work has shown that recalled ratings of pain are more closely associated with a combination of peak pain and pain proximal to the recall ratings than an average of all momentary reports. However, these studies have examined recalled pain over relatively short periods, usually under 1 hour. In this study of 32 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, momentary pain ratings taken over a 7-day period were compared with pain recalled on the eighth day. Analyses confirmed that a combination of peak and recent pain was a better predictor of recalled patient pain than was a simple average of all momentary pain reports. These results extend our understanding of how individuals remember pain and suggest alternative methods for assessing recalled pain.

The dynamics of symptomatic and non-symptomatic coping with psychotic symptoms in the flow of daily life.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has suggested that going along with psychotic symptoms (symptomatic coping) is less effective than other coping strategies with psychotic symptoms. This pilot study aims to validate such findings using a momentary assessment strategy of coping with stress in daily life. METHOD: Patients with psychosis (n = 35) were studied with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM; a structured diary technique) to assess coping with stress in daily life. This was analysed in relation to coping with psychotic symptoms using a previously validated interview (Maastricht Assessment of Coping Strategies). RESULTS: Symptomatic and non-symptomatic coping were negatively associated with each other. Symptomatic coping was negatively associated with the level of coping in daily life, whereas a positive association was apparent for non-symptomatic coping. Non-symptomatic coping, but not symptomatic coping, predicted appraisals of distress associated with psychotic symptoms. CONCLUSION: Effective coping may be associated with the tendency to develop conscious appraisals of distress associated with psychotic symptoms.

The daily life of ambulatory chronic mental patients.

The purpose of this research is to describe in greater detail than is typically done the daily life experiences of 11 ambulatory chronic mental patients and 11 nonpsychiatric controls. The subjects, although diagnostically heterogeneous, were representative of Dutch chronic mental patients. The Experience-Sampling Method was used to signal subjects randomly 10 times a day for 6 consecutive days to fill out self-rating forms assessing mental state and contextual information at the moment of the signal. Compliance was good. In time-allocation comparisons with nonpsychiatric subjects the patients were found to live relatively "normal" lives. As expected, their psychopathology was influenced by social environments such as being alone, at home, or in society at large. Contrary to other studies that stress the social isolation of such individuals, the chronic subjects reported feeling better away from home and among people than normal subjects. When alone, chronic patients reported daydreaming more and noted a tendency to drift away from thoughts about current activities. Mental state fluctuations and daily interactions, characteristic of this group, are examined in relation to theories of vulnerability and coping style of chronic mental patients, with an eye to individualized treatment applications.

Naturalistic assessments in psychiatry.

Research in psychiatry could speeden its progress by taking the manifest heterogenity and variability of symptom expression within diagnostic groups more fully into account. Since Kraepelin symptom variation has been recognized to have both biological and environmental roots. If investigated systematically, such variations in illness experience will yield new subtypes that will provide greater insight into the onset, course and vulnerability of mental disorders. Studies ranging from population surveys to the laboratory have demonstrated that psychopathology is not randomly distributed in a population, nor is it constantly present in the lives of individuals. At both the population and the person levels, psychopathology varies with time and place. At the population level, illness processes localize in risk groups, who often reside in specific neighbourhoods or social settings. The individual experience of psychopathology also fluctuates with time, place and culture. This variability requires methods for case detection and treatment planning that take this into account.

The context of delusional experiences in the daily life of patients with schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Global characteristics and psychosocial risk factors related to delusions have been identified. The present study extends these findings to the level of everyday functioning, identifying characteristics of delusional moments (DMs) and contextual risk and protective factors for delusional exacerbations in daily life. METHODS: Data were collected using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a time-sampling technique. Forty-eight chronic patients diagnosed with schizophrenia rated the intensity of pathological symptoms and mood states and described their thoughts and the environmental context during consecutive moments in daily life. Delusions were defined on the basis of self-rated suspicion, preoccupation, feeling controlled, and coded thought pathology. Daily context included current activity, persons present and location. Characteristics of DMs and non-delusional moments (nDMs) were compared, and a multilevel logistic regression model was used to identify contexts that might trigger or prevent DMs. RESULTS: On average, patients experienced delusions less than one-third of the time. DMs were characterized by higher negative affect and lower positive affect. The presence of family or acquaintances decreased the risk of subsequently experiencing a DM, whereas withdrawal from activities increased this risk. CONCLUSIONS: Data support the validity of ESM for investigating delusions in schizophrenia. Daily life contexts appear to alter the probability that delusions will occur. Knowledge about such contexts may therefore be useful in helping patients develop better coping strategies and in creating therapeutic interventions that can lessen emotional distress.

Do life events have their effect on psychosis by influencing the emotional reactivity to daily life stress?

BACKGROUND: Life events (LE) have consistently been found to influence course and outcome of psychotic disorders. However, the mechanism through which they operate is not known. The present study investigated whether LE have their effect by impacting on the emotional sensitivity for daily hassles. METHOD: Patients with clinically remitted psychotic illness (N=42) were studied with the Experience Sampling Method (a structured diary technique assessing current context and mood in daily life) to assess: (1) appraised subjective stress related to daily events and activities; and (2) emotional reactivity conceptualized as changes in both negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA). LE were assessed with the Brown & Harris Life Event and Difficulties Schedule. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analyses showed that previous exposure to LE influenced the appraised stressfulness of neither daily events nor the activities in which the subjects were involved. However, a history of LE did modify the emotional reaction to daily life stress, both in models predicting NA and in models predicting PA. CONCLUSIONS: By their cumulative effect on emotional reactivity to daily activities and events, LE may render individuals more vulnerable to the onset or persistence of psychotic experiences.