Addiction & Substance Use

How does the difference between objective evidence and subjective evidence relate to the practice of psychiatry?

You are surprised when a patient of yours, a physician recovering from a substance abuse problem, tests positive for morphine. Do you believe his explanation of a false-positive result?

With expansion of the concept of bipolar disorder (BD), there has been concern about the potential for overdiagnosis. However, diagnostic errors in bipolar disorder are currently skewed towards underdiagnosis.

The psychiatric community has a need for diagnostic and predictive tests. Some recent techniques have just become available for clinical care.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for children with anxiety disorders may be especially effective when the family is included in treatment.

Should physicians be allowed to assist in their patients' dying, and how can physician-assisted suicide be reconciled with the physician’s role as a healer?

The common sense notion that a child will benefit from an improvement in her mother’s depression has been confirmed in a prospective evaluation.

Antidepressants may have a protective effect on the hippocampal atrophy seen in patients with severe, untreated depression. This atrophy may be caused by an overabundance of glucocorticoids.

How effective is psychotherapy for the treatment of depression in children and adolescents?

Reexamining the Link Between Antidepressantsand Suicidality in Children and Adolescents

Parkinson disease, depression, hallucinations, psychosis, suicidality, motor control, psychiatric adverse effects

There is hope for patients with schizophrenia who do not respond to first-generation antipsychotic drugs: phase 2 results of the CATIE study show that second-generation antipsychotic drugs may be effective.

Every young woman who reads Pride and Prejudice imagines herself as the heroine, Elizabeth. Can a male director who confesses a lack of literary influences create a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved work?

Eating disorders in patients with schizophrenia have been underappreciated and poorly studied. Profiling characteristic phenotypic patterns will help clarify the distinctions among eating behaviors that are part of the spectrum of schizophrenia, those that represent distinct coexistent entities, and those that represent overlapping comorbidity.

Emotional maltreatment is of two major types: emotional abuse and emotional neglect. While emotional abuse is easier to identify, emotional neglect is subtler, possibly more damaging, and poses even more challenging barriers to definition and study.

The shift toward biologic preeminence has led to psychiatric residency programs de-emphasizing psychotherapy education. How does psychotherapy fit into the “age of the brain”?

Increased demand for accountability is requiring more clinicians to supplement their judgments of patient outcome with standardized and objective protocols. The protocol outlined here is a model or jumping-off point for outcome evaluation.

Childhood adversities associated with suicide risk include childhood maltreatment, problematic family relationships, socioeconomic hardship, and difficult relationships with peers. Acute suicide prevention strategies should focus on the treatment of contributory psychiatric disorders and on the crises that may precipitate suicidal behavior.

The impact of terrorism reaches many aspects of health and health care: acute and chronic symptoms of anxiety and depression, changes in health-related behaviors, and long-term strain and tension.

Because hoarding occurs in a substantial portion of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, neurologists are likely to encounter patients with this problem. Until recently, they had little to offer their patients or the patients' caregivers. Compulsive hoarding can cause severe impairment and presents intriguing psychopathology, yet it has received little systematic study, and no effective treatment is currently on the market.

Neurotechnology's New Wave, Part I: The Rise of the Device Market

autism, mirror neuron defect

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs for children won't require . restrictive black box labeling, as the FDA has reversed its earlier ruling.

A second opinion on the need for new warnings on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs from the FDA advisory committee contradicts The Pediatric Advisory Committee recommendation.

In many situations, patients--even those who are acutely mentally ill--and physicians agree on a treatment regimen. In some cases, however, patients may disagree with the treatment after the fact or refuse treatment altogether. Although the physician's primary concerns are patient care and safety, the legalities of medicine are ever present and must be kept in mind. The following cases illustrate some of the medicolegal challenges that may arise in the emergency care setting.

Differences between siblings are affected by internal representations and non-shared environmental influences such as gender, birth rank order, different peer influences, illnesses, and accidents.

Pediatric psychosomatic research shows that emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric symptoms are found more often in children and adolescents with chronic illnesses than in healthy children.

Evidence showing the effectiveness of psychopharmacologic and psychotherapeutic management of functional gastrointestinal disorders over standard medical treatment is increasing.

There is a tendency to avoid psychiatric medications during pregnancy, but the high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in pregnant women means that women and their physicians must make impromptu decisions regarding the initiation or continuation of drug therapy.

This study examined national patterns in emergency department (ED) treatment of patients aged 7 to 22 years who were seen after episodes of deliberate self-harm. Data were from the 1997-2002 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Population data from the 2000 US Census Bureau were used to estimate population visit rates for the age group studied.