ABSTRACT
Patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) smoke up to three times more than general people. However, there are conflicting results regarding the relationship between tobacco smoke and clinical symptom severity in SCZ. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of smoking on clinical symptoms after antipsychotic treatment in a 12-week cohort study after controlling for confounding factors. One hundred and forty-five male patients with drug-naïve first-episode (DNFE) SCZ received antipsychotic monotherapy for 12 weeks. Symptom severity was assessed at baseline and at week 12 by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). We found no differences in clinical symptoms among male smokers with SCZ compared with male nonsmokers. However, male smokers showed greater improvement in negative symptoms after 12 weeks of treatment, controlling for age, years of education, onset age, and baseline body mass index (BMI). Our study showed that after 12 weeks of treatment with antipsychotics, male smokers showed greater improvement in negative symptoms than male nonsmokers.
ABSTRACT
Fall-related injury is the most common cause of functional disability and mortality in the older population. Falls in patients with schizophrenia are one of the major concerns in psychiatric hospitals. This study aimed to examine the impact of standardized operating procedures (SOP) on falls in veterans with schizophrenia. Veterans with schizophrenia were allocated to the control group (n = 345) and to the fall protection standardized operating procedures (FP-SOP) group (n = 342). Patients in the control group were given routine nursing for falls, and patients in the FP-SOP group were intervened with FP-SOP plus routine nursing. All patients were observed for one year. The study methods comply with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist. We found a fall rate of 1.5% in the FP-SOP group and 4.6% in the control group, with a significant difference in the fall rate between the two groups. In addition, the difference in patient satisfaction between the two groups was statistically significant. Our findings suggest that FP-SOP is an effective strategy for fall prevention in psychiatric hospitals.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: In this study, we evaluated the evaluate the psychological loads of psychiatric nurses and analyzed the influencing factors of these loads in nurse-patient communication.Methods: We used a convenience sampling method to select 400 psychiatric nurses from 5 tertiary psychiatric hospitals in Hebei, Jiangsu and Guangdong between April 5, 2020 and March 5, 2022 to participate. All participants were interviewed using a self-developed psychiatric nurse-patient communication event questionnaire and a 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12). Results: The nurses' mean GHQ-12 score for psychiatric nurse-patient communication was 5.12±3.89 points, and generally, the psychological load was at a moderately high level. Among them, 196 (49.00%) had a high psychological load. The top 5 types of violence from patients or families towards the psychiatric nurses in the past month were injuries, verbal abuse, difficulties, work obstruction, and threatening intimidation. The most frequent factors in nurse-patient communication stress events were being worried about errors and accidents at work, being worried about not facing patient's emotional problems properly, and concern that they lacked communication skills about specific psychiatric symptoms. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that the important predictors of a high psychological load in psychiatric nurses included being male, having greater education, having worked a high number of years, having a high nurse characteristic factor load score, having a high environmental and social support factor load score, and experiencing workplace violence. Conclusion: The psychological load of psychiatric nurses is generally at a moderately high level and is directly related to gender, the number of working years, whether nurses have received professional systematic training, the frequency of workplace violence factors, nurses' characteristics, and environmental and social support scores. Accordingly, we should take note of these areas and improve them.