The Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation: A Prospective Study of Medical and Psychosocial Outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial factors may significantly affect post-transplant outcomes. The Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT) was developed as an assessment tool to enhance the pre-transplant psychosocial evaluation. METHODS: We identified heart, lung, liver, or kidney transplant recipients assessed with the SIPAT pre-transplantation and transplanted between June 1, 2008, and July 31, 2011, at our institution. We analyzed prospectively accumulated psychosocial and medical outcomes at 1 year of follow-up. RESULTS: 217 patients were identified and included in the analysis. The primary outcomes of organ failure and mortality occurred in 12 and 21 patients, respectively, and were not significantly associated with the pre-transplant SIPAT scores. On the other hand, SIPAT scores were significantly correlated with the probability of poor medical and psychosocial outcomes (secondary outcomes). In fact, higher SIPAT scores predicted higher rates of rejection episodes (Spearman ρ = 0.15, 95% 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.02-0.28, p = .023), medical hospitalizations (ρ = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.16-0.41, p < .001), infection rates (p = .020), psychiatric decompensation (p = .005), and support system failure (area under the curve = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.60-0.79, p < .001). The relationship with nonadherence suggested a trend, but no statistical significance was observed (area under the curve = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.50-0.71, p = .058). CONCLUSIONS: Study outcomes suggest that SIPAT is a promising pre-transplantation assessment tool that helps identify candidate's areas of psychosocial vulnerability and whose scores are associated with both psychosocial and medical outcomes after transplantation.

Adjunctive Valproic Acid in Management-Refractory Hyperactive Delirium: A Case Series and Rationale.

Patients with delirium may fail to respond to standard therapies. Sixteen patients with management-refractory hyperactive delirium responded to adjunctive valproic acid, with complete resolution of hyperactive delirium in 13 cases. A rationale for using valproic acid in such circumstances is discussed.

Valproic Acid for Treatment of Hyperactive or Mixed Delirium: Rationale and Literature Review.

BACKGROUND: Delirium is the most often encountered psychiatric diagnosis in the general hospital, with an incidence of up to 82% in the intensive care unit setting and with significant detrimental effects on patients' morbidity and mortality. Antipsychotics are often considered the first-line pharmacological treatment of delirium, but their use may be limited by lack of efficacy, existing contraindications (e.g., prolonged QTc intervals), or resulting side effects (e.g., akathisia). Valproic acid (VPA) is a potential alternative or adjunct treatment. It has multiple mechanisms of action, including effects on neurotransmitter modulation, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and transcription, all of which are implicated in the pathophysiology of delirium. Yet, data on the use of this agent in delirium are limited. OBJECTIVE/METHODS: In this article, we discuss postulated mechanisms of VPA action that provide a theoretical basis for its use in the treatment of hyperactive and mixed type delirium, based on the known and theorized pathophysiology of delirium. We also discuss potential side effects and considerations with use of VPA. CONCLUSIONS: VPA has multiple modulatory effects on neurotransmitter systems, inflammation, oxidative stress, and transcriptional changes implicated in pathophysiology of delirium. When carefully chosen, VPA can be an effective and well-tolerated treatment option for the management of hyperactive and mixed type delirium. Randomized controlled trials are needed to establish tolerability and efficacy of VPA for treatment of delirium.

Prospective Validation Study of the Prediction of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale (PAWSS) in Medically Ill Inpatients: A New Scale for the Prediction of Complicated Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome.

AIMS: The prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) among hospitalized medically ill patients exceeds 40%. Most AUD patients experience uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS), requiring only supportive medical intervention, while complicated AWS occurs in up to 20% of cases (i.e. seizures, delirium tremens). We aimed to prospectively test and validate the Prediction of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale (PAWSS), a new tool to identify patients at risk for developing complicated AWS, in medically ill hospitalized patients. METHODS: We prospectively considered all subjects hospitalized to selected general medicine and surgery units over a 12-month period. Participants were assessed independently and blindly on a daily basis with PAWSS, Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment-Alcohol, Revised (CIWA-Ar) and clinical monitoring throughout their admission to determine the presence and severity of AWS. RESULTS: Four hundred and three patients were enrolled in the study. Patients were grouped by PAWSS score: Group A (PAWSS < 4; considered at low risk for complicated AWS); Group B (PAWSS ≥ 4; considered at high risk for complicated AWS). The results of this study suggest that, using a PAWSS cutoff of 4, the tool's sensitivity for identifying complicated AWS is 93.1% (95%CI[77.2, 99.2%]), specificity is 99.5% (95%CI[98.1, 99.9%]), positive predictive value is 93.1% and negative predictive value is 99.5%; and has excellent inter-rater reliability with Lin's concordance coefficient of 0.963 (95% CI [0.936, 0.979]). CONCLUSION: PAWSS has excellent psychometric characteristics and predictive value among medically ill hospitalized patients, helping clinicians identify those at risk for complicated AWS and allowing for prevention and timely treatment of complicated AWS.

Recommendations for training psychiatry residents in psychosomatic medicine.

BACKGROUND: The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates that residents in psychiatry training programs learn to provide psychiatric consultation to other medical and surgical services. The ACGME, however, offers little information to instruct academic faculty and institutions to what constitutes a quality educational experience in psychosomatic medicine/consultation-liaison psychiatry for the resident trainee. METHODS: These recommendations were developed through a collaborative process between educators in C-L psychiatry and members of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine's Residency Education Subcommittee. RESULTS: This manuscript provides a broad framework for what constitutes a well-rounded clinical and academic resident rotation on psychiatric consultation-liaison services. A rotation that is viewed positively by residents is important as it likely provides a foundation for a growing interest in Psychosomatic Medicine and the development of future fellows and subspecialty trained physicians.

The Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT): a new tool for the psychosocial evaluation of pre-transplant candidates.

BACKGROUND: While medical criteria have been well established for each end-organ system, psychosocial listing criteria are less standardized. To address this limitation, we developed and tested a new assessment tool: the Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT). METHODS: The SIPAT was developed from a comprehensive review of the literature on the psychosocial factors that impact transplant outcomes. Five examiners blindly applied the SIPAT to 102 randomly selected transplant cases, including liver, heart, and lung patients. After all subject's files had been rated by the examiners, the respective transplant teams provided the research team with the patient's outcome data. RESULTS: Univariate logistic regression models were fit in order to predict the transplant psychosocial outcome (positive or negative) using each rater's SIPAT scores. These results show that SIPAT scores are highly predictive of the transplant psychosocial outcome (P < 0.0001). The instrument has excellent inter-rater reliability (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.853), even among novice raters. CONCLUSIONS: The SIPAT is a comprehensive screening tool to assist in the psychosocial assessment of organ transplant candidates. Its strengths includes the standardization of the evaluation process and its ability to identify subjects who are at risk for negative outcomes after the transplant, in order to allow for the development of interventions directed at improving the patient's candidacy. Our goal is that the SIPAT, in addition to a set of agreed upon minimal psychosocial listing criteria, would be used in combination with organ-specific medical listing criteria in order to establish standardized criteria for the selection of transplant recipients.

The Psychosocial Assessment of Transplant Candidates: Internal Consistency, Interrater Reliability, and Content Validity of the Thai Version of the Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT-Thai Version).

BACKGROUND: Standardized pretransplant psychosocial assessment is critically needed in Thailand to optimize medical and psychosocial outcomes after transplantation. The Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT) is a comprehensive and evidence-based tool that has demonstrated excellent reliability and predictive value in many psychosocial transplant studies. We translated the SIPAT into Thai and explored the validity and reliability of the SIPAT-Thai version among Thai transplant recipients. METHODS: We translated the original SIPAT into Thai following the World Health Organization's standard forward-backward translation procedure and then cross-sectionally assessed its validity and reliability in 110 Thai solid organ transplant candidates. The correlation between background data, total, and sectional scoring results of SIPAT-Thai were also analyzed. RESULTS: The SIPAT-Thai demonstrated moderate to good reliability, which was represented by internal consistency with a Cronbach α of .751 and interrater reliability with a κ value at 0.767. The index of item-objective congruence value was 0.94, indicating good the content validity. CONCLUSIONS: The SIPAT-Thai was systematically translated and shown to have acceptable validity and a moderate to good reliability index. The use of the SIPAT-Thai would provide a standardized, evidence-based, and a more systematic pretransplant psychosocial evaluation process for transplant candidates in Thailand.

Neurocognitive impairment and psychiatric comorbidity in well-controlled human immunodeficiency virus-infected Thais from the 2NN Cohort Study.

This research is a cross-sectional study to determine the frequency of neurocognitive impairment and psychiatric comorbidity among Thais maintained on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with undetectable plasma human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) RNA in the 2NN Cohort. Sixty-four subjects were evaluated with neurological examinations, neuropsychological testing, and psychiatric questionnaires. Twenty-four subjects (37.5%) were found to have neurocognitive impairment, with 13 (20.3%), 10 (15.6%), and 1 (1.6%) classified as asymptomatic neurocognitive disorder (ANI), mild neurocognitive disorder (MND), and HIV-associated dementia (HAD), respectively. Three subjects (4.7%) had depression and no cases had significant symptoms of anxiety. A notable proportion of well-controlled individuals exhibited neurocognitive impairment. Anxiety and depression were uncommon.

The impact of depression in heart disease.

Depression and heart disease affect millions of people worldwide. Studies have shown that depression is a significant risk factor for new heart disease and that it increases morbidity and mortality in established heart disease. Many hypothesized and studied mechanisms have linked depression and heart disease, including serotonergic pathway and platelet dysfunction, inflammation, autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis imbalance, and psychosocial factors. Although the treatment of depression in cardiac patients has been shown to be safe and modestly efficacious, it has yet to translate into reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Understanding the impact and mechanisms behind the association of depression and heart disease may allow for the development of treatments aimed at altering the devastating consequences caused by these comorbid illnesses.

Psychiatric aspects of chronic lung disease.

Chronic lung diseases continue to be common and cause significant morbidity and mortality. There is a complex interplay between psychiatric issues and pulmonary diseases. This review aims to summarize the recent literature and advances involving psychiatric aspects of lung diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, restrictive lung disease, and cystic fibrosis. The authors include the latest findings in epidemiology, impact, etiology, screening, and management of psychiatric and pulmonary comorbidity. The relationship between mental health and lung disease, as it is between mental health and other physical illnesses, is multifactorial. Further studies continue to clarify issues and treatment guidelines for this comorbidity.

Effects of progressive muscle relaxation training on anxiety and depression in patients enrolled in an outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program.

BACKGROUND: This prospective, randomized controlled trial examined the effect of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) training on anxiety and depression in patients with chronic breathing disorders receiving pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). METHODS: Eighty-three subjects with chronic breathing disorders entering the 8-week PR program were randomly assigned to a standard care or intervention group. The standard program included 2 days per week of exercise, education and psychosocial support delivered by a multidisciplinary team. The intervention group received additional sessions of PMR training using a prerecorded tape for 25 min/week during weeks 2-8. Primary outcome measures were levels of anxiety and depression evaluated by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. RESULTS: For anxiety, there was an overall significant improvement within each group over time (p < 0.0001). There was no statistically significant group-time interaction (p = 0.17) and no statistically significant difference between the groups (p = 0.22), despite lower scores for every time point in the PMR group. For depression, there was an overall significant improvement within each group over time (p < 0.0001). Although the difference between the groups (p = 0.09) and group-time interaction (p = 0.07) did not reach statistical significance, the results again favored the PMR group for weeks 5-8. Depression scores were lower for the PMR throughout weeks 1-8. CONCLUSIONS: PR is effective in reducing anxiety and depressive level in chronic lung patients. Our findings suggest that adding structured PMR training to a well-established PR program may not confer additional benefit in the further reduction of anxiety and depression in patients receiving PR.

Epigenetics of depression.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is associated with poor psychological, medical, and socioeconomic outcomes. Although much has been learned about the etiology and treatment options of MDD over the past decade, there remain unanswered questions that pose challenges to improving acute and chronic outcomes for those with MDD. MDD is a clinically heterogeneous disorder. Genetic studies to date have indicated a number of genes, including transporters, neurotransmitters, neurotrophins, and their associated signaling networks that may predispose individuals to MDD and may also predict treatment outcomes. However, twin studies indicate that genes account for only a small degree of the variation in MDD. Thus, other mechanisms, through epigenetic marks, may act to form a molecular memory of previous gene-to-environment interactions and to establish vulnerabilities (or, conversely, resistance) to MDD. Current evidence supports a role for pre-, peri-, and early postnatal adversities and stressful life events into adulthood affecting epigenetic patterns, providing a mechanistic foundation to develop epigenetic marks as biomarkers for MDD. This review presents the evidence supporting a role for epigenetic effects in MDD and in treatment response. We also discuss the controversy behind modulating epigenetic mechanisms in long-term antidepressant pharmacotherapy.

The "Prediction of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale" (PAWSS): systematic literature review and pilot study of a new scale for the prediction of complicated alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

BACKGROUND: To date, no screening tools for alcohol withdrawal syndromes (AWS) have been validated in the medically ill. Although several tools quantify the severity of AWS (e.g., Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol [CIWA]), none identify subjects at risk of AWS, thus missing the opportunity for timely prophylaxis. Moreover, there are no validated tools for the prediction of complicated (i.e., moderate to severe) AWS in the medically ill. OBJECTIVES: Our goals were (1) to conduct a systematic review of the published literature on AWS to identify clinical factors associated with the development of AWS, (2) to use the identified factors to develop a tool for the prediction of alcohol withdrawal among patients at risk, and (3) to conduct a pilot study to assess the validity of the tool. METHODS: For the creation of the Prediction of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale (PAWSS), we conducted a systematic literature search using PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines for clinical factors associated with the development of AWS, using PubMed, PsychInfo, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Databases. Eligibility criteria included: (i) manuscripts dealing with human subjects, age 18 years or older, (ii) manuscripts directly addressing descriptions of AWS or its predisposing factors, including case reports, naturalistic case descriptions, and all types of clinical trials (e.g., randomized, single-blind, or open label studies), (iii) manuscripts describing characteristics of alcohol use disorder (AUD), and (iv) manuscripts dealing with animal data (which were considered only if they directly dealt with variables described in humans). Obtained data were used to develop the Prediction of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale, in order to assist in the identification of patients at risk for complicated AWS. A pilot study was conducted to assess the new tool's psychometric qualities on patients admitted to a general inpatient medicine unit over a 2-week period, who agreed to participate in the study. Blind to PAWSS results, a separate group of researchers retrospectively examined the medical records for evidence of AWS. RESULTS: The search produced 2802 articles describing factors potentially associated with increased risk for AWS, increased severity of withdrawal symptoms, and potential characteristics differentiating subjects with various forms of AWS. Of these, 446 articles met inclusion criteria and underwent further scrutiny, yielding a total of 233 unique articles describing factors predictive of AWS. A total of 10 items were identified as correlated with complicated AWS (i.e., withdrawal hallucinosis, withdrawal-related seizures, and delirium tremens) and used to construct the PAWSS. During the pilot study, a total of 68 subjects underwent evaluation with PAWSS. In this pilot sample the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of PAWSS were 100%, using the threshold score of 4. DISCUSSION: The results of the literature search identified 10 items which may be correlated with risk for complicated AWS. These items were assembled into a tool to assist in the identification of patients at risk: PAWSS. The results of this pilot study suggest that PAWSS may be useful in identifying risk of complicated AWS in medically ill, hospitalized individuals. PAWSS is the first validated tool for the prediction of severe AWS in the medically ill and its use may aid in the early identification of patients at risk for complicated AWS, allowing for prophylaxis against AWS before severe alcohol withdrawal syndromes develop.

Interface of Women's Mental and Reproductive Health.

The interface of women's reproductive and mental health is an evolving area of psychiatric practice, necessitating familiarity with psychobiological factors unique to women. The role of estrogen in particular has profound implications for the etiology and treatment of women's psychiatric illness, and has been reviewed along with the role of other hormones. Additionally, the stress of specific life events such as miscarriage, abortion, and menopause affects female mental health from a biological and psychosocial standpoint with the potential for secondary mood and anxiety disorders. Psychiatric issues during pregnancy and the postpartum period present special diagnostic and treatment challenges to the clinician. Biological and psychosocial treatments of these conditions have been reviewed. Management of psychiatric conditions during pregnancy and the postpartum period should include the obstetrician, pediatrician, and involved family members. Treatment decisions should involve careful assessment of the risks and benefits of any intervention including the risk of no treatment.