Clinical characterization of brief psychotic disorders triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicenter observational study.

This study aimed to characterize the clinical profile of patients with brief psychotic disorders (BPD) triggered by the psychosocial distress derived from the COVID-19 crisis. A multicenter study was conducted from March 14 to May 14, 2020 (the peak weeks of the pandemic in Europe). All consecutive patients presenting non-affective psychotic episodes with a duration of untreated psychosis of less than 1 month and whose onset was related to the COVID-19 crisis were recruited, but only those patients meeting Diagnostic Statistical Manual 5th edition (DSM-5) criteria for "BPD with marked stressors" (DSM-5 code: 298.8) during follow-up were finally included. Patients' sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were collected at baseline and summarized with descriptive statistics. During the study period, 57 individuals with short-lived psychotic episodes related to the emotional stress of the COVID-19 pandemic were identified, of whom 33 met DSM-5 criteria for "BPD with marked stressors". The mean age was 42.33 ± 14.04 years, the gender distribution was almost the same, and the majority were rated as having good premorbid adjustment. About a quarter of the patients exhibited suicidal symptoms and almost half presented first-rank schizophrenia symptoms. None of them were COVID-19 positive, but in more than half of the cases, the topic of their psychotic features was COVID-19-related. The coronavirus pandemic is triggering a significant number of BPD cases. Their risk of suicidal behavior, their high relapse rate, and their low temporal stability make it necessary to closely monitor these patients over time.

Characterization of deficit schizophrenia and reliability of the bidimensional model of its negative symptomatology.

Background: Cumulative evidence has demonstrated important differences between deficit (DS) and non-deficit (NDS) schizophrenia, suggesting that DS may be a separate disease. However, most data come from the same research groups and more replication is needed to validate this hypothesis.Aims: Our study aimed to examine the distribution of DS, to compare their characteristics with NDS patients and to analyze the reliability of the two-factor structure of its negative symptomatology in a Spanish clinical sample.Methods: Sixty clinically stabilized patients with schizophrenia were evaluated. The Schedule for the Deficit Syndrome was used for DS/NDS categorization. Patient characteristics included age, gender, education, age at onset of psychosis, duration of illness, family history of psychosis, type of antipsychotic regimen, schizophrenia subtype and severity of the disease.Results: DS prevalence was 28.3%. Bivariate analysis revealed statistical differences between DS and NDS in terms of years of education and schizophrenia subtype. Factor analysis replicated the two-factor solution consisting of the 'Expressive deficit' and 'Avolition-apathy' domains reported in previous studies.Conclusions: Our results were consistent with the published data and indicated that the DS profile in the Spanish population is similar to that in other populations, which would corroborate the homogeneity of DS within the schizophrenia spectrum and contribute to the hypothesis that DS constitutes a separate disease.

Proxy measures for the assessment of psychotic and affective symptoms in studies using electronic health records.

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of standardised psychometric data in electronic health record (EHR)-based research. Proxy measures of symptom severity based on patients' clinical records may be useful surrogates in mental health EHR research. AIMS: This study aimed to validate proxy tools for the short versions of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS-6), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS-6) and Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS-6). METHOD: A cross-sectional, multicentre study was conducted in a sample of 116 patients with first-episode psychosis from 12 public hospitals in Spain. Concordance between PANSS-6, YMRS-6 and MADRS-6 scores and their respective proxies was evaluated based on information from EHR clinical notes, using a variety of statistical procedures, including multivariate tests to adjust for potential confounders. Bootstrapping techniques were used for internal validation, and an independent cohort from the Treatment and Early Intervention in Psychosis Program (TIPP-Lausanne, Switzerland) for external validation. RESULTS: The proxy versions correlated strongly with their respective standardised scales (partial correlations ranged from 0.75 to 0.84) and had good accuracy and discriminatory power in distinguishing between patients in and not in remission (percentage of patients correctly classified ranged from 83.9 to 91.4% and bootstrapped optimism-corrected area under the receiver operating characteristic curve ranged from 0.76 to 0.89), with high interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.81). The findings remained robust in the external validation data-set. CONCLUSIONS: The proxy instruments proposed for assessing psychotic and affective symptoms by reviewing EHR provide a feasible and reliable alternative to traditional structured psychometric procedures, and a promising methodology for real-world practice settings.

The relationship between human development and prevalence of deficit schizophrenia: Results from a systematic review and meta-analysis.

This study examined the relationship between the prevalence of deficit schizophrenia (DS) and a country's Human Development Index (HDI). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature published in the last decade were conducted to acquire data on the worldwide prevalence of deficit syndrome in schizophrenia cohorts and examine the correlation between DS prevalence and the HDI of the countries in the review. Twenty-six studies meeting our eligibility criteria provided prevalence data on DS in 14 countries with both low-to-middle and high-incomes, ranging from 14.34%-to 61.57%. The pooled prevalence of DS was 32.19% (95% CI = 26.17 to 38.52). Statistical analysis yielded a correlation coefficient (r) of -0.518 (95% CI = -0.754 to -0.164; p = 0.007), indicating a moderate inverse correlation between DS prevalence and HDI. This relationship remained significant in partial correlation analysis after controlling for potential sources of bias in the DS estimates (r = -0.489, p = 0.013). Our results show that schizophrenia cohorts from low-to-middle-income countries are more prone to primary and enduring negative symptoms, and contribute to the emerging evidence questioning the axiom that schizophrenia in the developing world has a better course than in high-income countries.

Reactive psychoses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Clinical perspectives from a case series.

INTRODUCTION: The world is currently undergoing an extremely stressful scenario due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This unexpected and dramatic situation could increase the incidence of mental health problems, among them, psychotic disorders. The aim of this paper was to describe a case series of brief reactive psychosis due to the psychological distress from the current coronavirus pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We report on a case series including all the patients with reactive psychoses in the context of the COVID-19 crisis who were admitted to the Virgen del Rocío and Virgen Macarena University Hospitals (Seville, Spain) during the first two weeks of compulsory nationwide quarantine. RESULTS: In that short period, four patients met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for a brief reactive psychotic disorder. All of the episodes were directly triggered by stress derived from the COVID-19 pandemic and half of the patients presented severe suicidal behavior at admission. CONCLUSIONS: We may now be witnessing an increasing number of brief reactive psychotic disorders as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This type of psychosis has a high risk of suicidal behavior and, although short-lived, has a high rate of psychotic recurrence and low diagnostic stability over time. Therefore, we advocate close monitoring in both the acute phase and long-term follow-up of these patients.

Reactive psychoses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Clinical perspectives from a case series.

Introduction: The world is currently undergoing an extremely stressful scenario due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This unexpected and dramatic situation could increase the incidence of mental health problems, among them, psychotic disorders. The aim of this paper was to describe a case series of brief reactive psychosis due to the psychological distress from the current coronavirus pandemic. Materials and methods: We report on a case series including all the patients with reactive psychoses in the context of the COVID-19 crisis who were admitted to the Virgen del Rocío and Virgen Macarena University Hospitals (Seville, Spain) during the first two weeks of compulsory nationwide quarantine. Results: In that short period, four patients met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for a brief reactive psychotic disorder. All of the episodes were directly triggered by stress derived from the COVID-19 pandemic and half of the patients presented severe suicidal behavior at admission. Conclusions: We may now be witnessing an increasing number of brief reactive psychotic disorders as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This type of psychosis has a high risk of suicidal behavior and, although short-lived, has a high rate of psychotic recurrence and low diagnostic stability over time. Therefore, we advocate close monitoring in both the acute phase and long-term follow-up of these patients.

Introducción: El mundo está experimentando un escenario extremadamente estresante a causa de la pandemia del COVID-19. Esta situación inesperada y dramática podría incrementar la incidencia de los problemas de salud mental y, entre estos, los trastornos psicóticos. El objetivo de este documento es describir una serie de casos de psicosis reactiva breve, debidos al distrés psicológico debido a la pandemia actual de coronavirus. Materiales y métodos: Reportamos una serie de casos que incluye a todos los pacientes con psicosis reactiva en el contexto de la crisis del COVID-19, ingresados en los Hospitales Universitarios Virgen del Rocío y Virgen Macarena (Sevilla, España) durante las 2 primeras semanas de la cuarentena obligatoria a nivel nacional. Resultados: En este breve espacio de tiempo, 4 pacientes cumplieron los criterios de trastorno psicótico breve del manual diagnóstico y estadístico de trastornos mentales (DSM-5). Todos los episodios fueron desencadenados por el estrés derivado de la pandemia del COVID-19, y la mitad de los pacientes presentaron un comportamiento suicida grave a su ingreso. Conclusiones: Actualmente podemos estar asistiendo a un incremento del número de trastornos psicóticos reactivos breves, como resultado de la pandemia del COVID-19. Este tipo de psicosis tiene un elevado riesgo de comportamiento suicida y, aunque es transitorio, tiene una elevada tasa de recurrencia psicótica y baja estabilidad diagnóstica a lo largo del tiempo. Por tanto, somos partidarios de una supervisión estrecha tanto en la fase aguda como en el seguimiento a largo plazo de estos pacientes.