Treatments for Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder in Women: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) is characterized by elevated discomfort associated with persistent genital arousal in the absence of sexual desire. AIM: To perform a scoping review of the proposed treatments for PGAD and their efficacy. METHODS: A scoping review was carried out (PRISMA-Scr) that included articles on PGAD as the main disorder, only in women, which explained, in detail, the treatment and its efficacy, was empirical, was written in English and Spanish. No prior filtering by years was performed. OUTCOMES: Three different effective treatments were found (Physical therapies, pharmacological therapies, and psychotherapeutics in combination with other therapies). RESULTS: Thirty-eight articles were selected. From physical therapies, treatments using neuromodulation, transcutaneous electrical stimulation, Botox, surgery, electroconvulsive therapy, manual therapy, pelvic floor therapy, dietary changes, and transcranial magnetic stimulation showed effectiveness. Using the pharmacological approach, paroxetine, duloxetine, pramipexole, ropinirole, and clonazepam treatments were effective. Psychotherapy treatments showed effectiveness only in combination with other types of treatments, specifically a combination of cognitive-behavioral strategies with pharmacological treatment. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Pharmacological treatment, specifically SSRIs, have proven to be the therapy of choice for different subtypes of patients. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: This study analyzed treatment effectiveness with different approaches and took into consideration those articles where psychotherapy was used as a combination treatment with pharmacological and physical therapy. The main limitation is that it was focused exclusively on women, and the results cannot be generalized to include men. CONCLUSIONS: To date, a combination of pharmacological interventions with physical therapy and, in some occasions, with psychological therapy is main strategy followed to accomplish effective treatment of PGAD. Martín-Vivar M, Villena-Moya A, Mestre-Bach G, et al. Treatments for Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder in Women: A Scoping Review. J Sex Med 2022;19:961-974.

Factorial invariance and norms of the 30-item shortened-version of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-30).

BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depressive disorders are among the most common mental disorders during childhood and adolescence. As the 30-item shortened version of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-30) exhibits excellent psychometric properties, it is one of the most commonly used scales for the initial detection and assessment of these symptoms in children and adolescents. This is because of the advantage of its brevity when compared to the 47-item version. The aim of this study was to analyse factorial invariance according to sex, age, and format used to administer the test, and to identify the RCADS-30 subscales. METHOD: A sample of 3,708 Spanish children and adolescents aged between 7 and 18 years old (M = 12.0 years, SD = 2.8) participated in the study. RESULTS: The factorial structure of the RCADS-30 is invariant according to sex, age, and format used to administer the scale. CONCLUSIONS: The RCADS-30 exhibited excellent factorial invariance for the variables analysed, confirming its usability for different types of sample and administration formats.

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale: A systematic review and reliability generalization meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depression are among the most common mental disorders during childhood and adolescence. Among the instruments for the brief screening assessment of symptoms of anxiety and depression, the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is one of the more widely used. Previous studies have demonstrated the reliability of the RCADS for different assessment settings and different versions. The aims of this study were to examine the mean reliability of the RCADS and the influence of the moderators on the RCADS reliability. METHODS: We searched in EBSCO, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and NCBI databases and other articles manually from lists of references of extracted articles. RESULTS: A total of 146 studies were included in our meta-analysis. The RCADS showed robust internal consistency reliability in different assessment settings, countries, and languages. We only found that reliability of the RCADS was significantly moderated by the version of RCADS. However, these differences in reliability between different versions of the RCADS were slight and can be due to the number of items. LIMITATIONS: We did not examine factor structure, factorial invariance across gender, age, or country, and test-retest reliability of the RCADS. CONCLUSIONS: The RCADS is a reliable instrument for cross-cultural use, with the advantage of providing more information with a low number of items in the assessment of both anxiety and depression symptoms in children and adolescents.