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Objectives: Clinical variables were investigated in the 'treatment resistant depression (TRD)‐ III' sample to replicate earlier findings by the European research consortium 'Group for the Study of Resistant Depression' (GSRD) and enable cross‐sample prediction of treatment outcome in TRD. Experimental procedures: TRD was defined by a Montgomery and Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score ≥22 after at least two antidepressive trials. Response was defined by a decline in MADRS score by ≥50% and below a threshold of 22. Logistic regression was applied to replicate predictors for TRD among 16 clinical variables in 916 patients. Elastic net regression was applied for prediction of treatment outcome. Results: Symptom severity (odds ratio (OR) = 3.31), psychotic symptoms (OR = 2.52), suicidal risk (OR = 1.74), generalized anxiety disorder (OR = 1.68), inpatient status (OR = 1.65), higher number of antidepressants administered previously (OR = 1.23), and lifetime depressive episodes (OR = 1.15) as well as longer duration of the current episode (OR = 1.022) increased the risk of TRD. Prediction of TRD reached an accuracy of 0.86 in the independent validation set, TRD‐I. Conclusion: Symptom severity, suicidal risk, higher number of lifetime depressive episodes, and comorbid anxiety disorder were replicated as the most prominent risk factors for TRD. Significant predictors in TRD‐III enabled robust prediction of treatment outcome in TRD‐I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This multicenter, multinational, cross‐sectional study aimed to investigate clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes associated with augmentation/combination treatment strategies in major depressive disorder (MDD). Method: Sociodemographic, clinical, and treatment features of 1410 adult MDD patients were compared between MDD patients treated with monotherapy and augmentation/combination medication using descriptive statistics, analyses of covariance ( ancova), and Spearman's correlation analyses. Results: 60.64% of all participants received augmentation and/or combination strategies with a mean number of 2.18 ± 1.22 simultaneously prescribed psychiatric drugs. We found male gender, older age, Caucasian descent, higher weight, low educational status, absence of occupation, psychotic symptoms, melancholic and atypical features, suicide risk, in‐patient treatment, longer duration of hospitalization, some psychiatric comorbidities (panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive‐compulsive disorder, and bulimia nervosa), comorbid somatic comorbidity in general and concurrent hypertension, thyroid dysfunction, diabetes, and heart disease in particular, higher current and retrospective Montgomery and Åsberg Depression Rating Scale total scores, treatment resistance, and higher antidepressant dosing to be significantly associated with augmentation/combination treatment. These findings were corroborated when examining the number of concurrently administered psychiatric drugs in the statistical analyses. Conclusion: Our findings suggest a clear association between augmentation/combination strategies and treatment‐resistant/difficult‐to‐treat MDD conditions characterized by severe symptomatology and high amount of psychiatric and somatic comorbidities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical synthesis of bismuth telluride BiTe and other chalcogenide thermoelectric materials is possible by many different routes. Most often, the chalcogenide material is produced as nanocrystals of various morphologies in attempts to achieve better thermoelectric performance in the nanocomposite because of enhanced grain boundary scattering. However, publications dealing with the synthesis of large amounts of cheap nanomaterials are still very rare. We present an aqueous chemical synthesis in alkaline solution as well as in an NH/NHCl buffer medium producing nanocrystalline bismuth telluride in high quantities. For the precipitation process, different Bi and Sb salts can be used as precursors resulting in a variety of product morphologies. The use of a buffer medium for the reaction solution makes it possible to dissolve the precursors in acidic medium, adding a solution instead of dispersion to the reaction medium. The powders from the reactions were sintered to give nanocomposites using spark plasma sintering. Only a small influence of sintering on the nanostructure could be detected. Room-temperature thermoelectric properties of these nanocomposites are within the range or slightly worse than the values for bulk material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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