Publications by authors named "Pierfelice Cutrufelli"

Background: Schizophrenia treatment with antipsychotics often results in side effects that impact adherence and quality of life. Managing these effects remains challenging, as it requires balancing efficacy and tolerability. The Schizophrenia Technological Evaluation of Patient Side Effects (STEP-SE) app aims to aid side effects monitoring and management through shared decision-making (SDM).

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  • - Empowerment in psychiatry is about patients actively participating in their health decisions, which can lead to better treatment outcomes, especially important in mental health due to issues like stigma and cognitive challenges.
  • - A study involving 73 patients with Major Depressive Disorder found no significant links between decision-making involvement and perceived empowerment, nor between trust in psychiatrists and empowerment; however, higher depression severity correlated with lower empowerment.
  • - The results indicate that simply having trust or involvement in decision-making may not enhance empowerment; instead, it suggests that higher empowerment correlates with lower depression levels, highlighting the complexity of patient engagement in mental health care.
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Background: N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) appears promising as a treatment in patients with substance use disorder (SUD) as it helps rebalance glutamate levels in the central nervous system (CNS). Basal concentrations of glutamate are indeed reduced in SUD patients but increased during craving.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

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Background: Patients undergoing antipsychotic treatment for psychiatric disorders may experience challenges in functioning, either stemming from the severity of the illness or from the tolerability issues of prescribed medications.

Objectives: The aims of this cross-sectional study are to investigate the impact of adverse effects of antipsychotic drugs on patients' daily life functioning, comparing oral and long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics, and further dividing antipsychotics by receptor-binding profiles based on recently defined data-driven taxonomy.

Methods: This study involved patients with schizophrenia and bipolar spectrum disorders taking oral or LAI antipsychotics.

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  • Understanding mental pain in psychotic disorders can help improve treatment strategies and patient outcomes.
  • The study focused on 34 stable individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, examining the links between mental pain, mind wandering, and self-reflection.
  • Findings showed that mind wandering correlates positively with mental pain, while self-reflection inversely affects it, implying that reducing mind wandering and enhancing self-reflection could benefit treatment.
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Background: Antipsychotic drugs are the mainstay treatment for schizophrenia, yet they are associated with diverse and potentially dose-related side effects which can reduce quality of life. For this reason, the lowest possible doses of antipsychotics are generally recommended, but higher doses are often used in clinical practice. It is still unclear if and how antipsychotic doses could be reduced safely in order to minimise the adverse-effect burden without increasing the risk of relapse.

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Background: In clinical practice, different antipsychotics can be combined in the treatment of people with schizophrenia (polypharmacy). This strategy can aim at increasing efficacy, but might also increase the adverse effects due to drug-drug interactions. Reducing polypharmacy by withdrawing one or more antipsychotics may reduce this problem, but must be done carefully, in order to maintain efficacy.

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Background: Family interventions are efficacious for relapse prevention in schizophrenia. Multiple different models have been developed. We aimed to compare the efficacy, acceptability, and tolerability of family interventions for relapse prevention in schizophrenia.

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