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Background: Self-harm is common and there is a need for studies that investigate the relevance of this behavior in clinical samples to inform risk assessment and treatment. The objectives in the current studies were to compare clinical and psychosocial correlates and subsequent adverse outcomes in youth who present to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) with self-harm only (SH), self-harm with suicidality (SH+SU), with those without any indication of SH or SH+SU. Methods: We conducted a case-control study and a longitudinal cohort study using data from a regional clinical care register, and Swedish national registers. The case-control study included all patients (5-17 years) between 2011 and 2015 (N = 25,161). SH and SH+SU cases were compared with controls (patients without SH) regarding a range of correlates. The longitudinal study included former CAMHS patients (N = 6,120) who were followed for a median time of 2.8 years after termination of CAMHS contact regarding outcomes such as clinical care consumption, social welfare recipiency, and crime conviction. Results: In the case-control study, both the SH and SH+SU groups received more clinical care, had lower global functioning, and higher odds of having mental disorders compared to controls. In most comparisons, the SH+SU group had more problems than the SH group. In the longitudinal study, the same pattern emerged for most outcomes; for example, the adjusted hazard ratio for recurrent care due to self-harm was 23.1 (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.0-31.4) in the SH+SU group compared to 3.9 (95% CI, 2.3-6.7) in the SH group. Conclusions: Adolescent patients presenting with self-harm have higher risks for adverse outcomes than patients without self-harm. Suicidality in addition to self-harm is associated with more severe outcomes, importantly recurrent episodes of care for self-harm.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the predictive accuracy of the Suicide Intent Scale (SIS), the Suicide Assessment Scale (SUAS), the Karolinska Interpersonal Violence Scale (KIVS), and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) for suicide attempts and suicides within 3 and 12 months of an episode of self-harm. METHODS: This prospective multicenter cohort study included patients (N = 804) aged 18-95 years with a recent episode of self-harm assessed in psychiatric emergency settings from April 2012 to April 2016. Suicide attempts and suicides were identified in medical records and in the National Cause of Death Register. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed, and accuracy statistics were calculated. A sensitivity of at least 80% combined with a specificity of at least 50% were considered minimally acceptable. RESULTS: At least 1 suicide attempt was recorded for 216 participants during follow-up, and 19 participants died by suicide. The SUAS and C-SSRS were better than chance in classifying the 114 suicide attempts occurring within the first 3 months; a C-SSRS score ≥ 27 yielded a sensitivity/specificity of 79.8%/51.5% (P < .001). During 1-year follow-up, the SUAS and C-SSRS also performed better than chance, but no cutoff on either instrument gave a sensitivity/specificity of ≥ 80%/≥ 50%. The SIS was the only instrument that could classify suicides correctly. At 3 months, the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.94 (95% CI, 0.89-0.99), and a score ≥ 21 predicted suicide with a sensitivity/specificity of 100%/81.9%, based on only 4 suicides. At 1-year follow-up, the AUC was 0.74 (95% CI, 0.61-0.87), and a score ≥ 17 predicted suicide with a sensitivity/specificity of 72.2%/57.9%. CONCLUSIONS: Instruments that predicted nonfatal repeat suicide attempts did not predict suicide and vice versa. With the possible exception of the prediction of suicide by the SIS in a short time frame, the specificity of these instruments was low, giving them a limited rele

Emotion regulation group therapy (ERGT) is a novel treatment specifically targeting deliberate non-suicidal self-harm (DSH) in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Identifying robust predictors of positive response to ERGT could aid clinicians in treatment selection; however, to date, only one such study has been conducted. Thus, we aimed to replicate previously identified predictors of treatment response to ERGT by investigating demographic, clinical, and diagnostic predictors in 95 women with BPD or subclinical BPD who had participated in an open-trial evaluation of ERGT. Outcomes evaluated were frequency of DSH and emotion dysregulation. Assessments were conducted at pretreatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up. Multilevel mixed linear models and multilevel negative binomial generalized estimated equations were used to identify significant interactions between the predictors and outcomes. We found that greater pretreatment DSH frequency was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.998, SE = 0.00, p = 0.03) and follow-up (b = 0.997, SE = 0.00, p < 0.01) and that greater BPD severity was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.84, SE = 0.06, p = 0.02) and in emotion dysregulation at follow-up (b = −3.05, SE = 1.47, p = 0.04). Co-occurring disorders were associated with poorer treatment response during follow-up. Results were generally consistent with a previous study of the predictors of response to ERGT. The findings provide further support for the utility of this treatment across a range of BPD patients, including patients with severe DSH and BPD.

Over the last few years, chat has become an important channel in customer service. The demand for chat as a customer service channel is constantly growing, as more and more customers require real time help during their visits on companies’ websites. This demand highlights the importance of chat agents’ ability to handle multiple simultaneous chats at a time. However, it has been proven by numerous studies, that multitasking has decreasing effects on performance. On the other hand, studies have shown that those effects can be decreased with different user interface design decisions. This thesis studies how user interface layout of a customer service chat system affects usability in chat multitasking. The research problem is addressed by conducting an experiment, where two popular customer service chat layouts are compared: In the first, windowed layout, all simultaneous chat windows are shown for the user at a time. In the second, tabbed layout, only one conversation is shown for the user at a time. In addition, differences between having either three or four simultaneous chats are investigated. The results indicate that the windowed layout was faster in terms of efficiency, when first response time was measured. Other aspects of efficiency, measured as question response time and chat duration, did not differ between the layouts. However, when the chat amount was increased from three to four, it was found that the stress level increased considerably in the windowed layout. All aspects of efficiency decreased in both layouts when the amount of simultaneous chats was increased from three to four. However, increasing the chat amount did not affect any other satisfaction measures than the perceived stress level. Because the response time for actual questions or preference between the layouts did not differ, both layouts can be suggested to be used in chat agent user interface. Slightly better choice would be the windowed layout, if first responses are wanted to be fast., Muutaman viime vuoden aikana chatista on tullut tärkeä kanava asiakaspalvelussa. Tarve chatille asiakaspalvelukanavana kasvaa jatkuvasti, kun yhä useammat asiakkaat vaativat reaaliaikaista apua vieraillessaan yritysten nettisivuilla. Tämä tarve korostaa usean yhtäaikaisen chatin käsittelyn kyvyn tärkeyttä. Monet tutkimukset ovat kuitenkin osoittaneet, että usean asian tekeminen samaan aikaan laskee suorituskykyä. Toisaalta, tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet, että suorituskyvyn laskua voidaan ehkäistä erilaisilla käyttöliittymäratkaisuilla. Tämä diplomityö tutkii asiakaspalvelu-chat-järjestelmän käyttöliittymän layoutin vaikutusta käytettävyyteen usean samanaikaisen keskustelun aikana. Tutkimusongelmaa tarkastellaan kokeella, jossa vertaillaan kahta yleisesti käytössä olevaa asiakaspalvelu-chat-layoutia: Ensimmäisessä layoutissa kaikki käynnissä olevat keskusteluikkunat näytetään käyttäjälle samaan aikaan. Toisessa layoutissa käyttäjälle näytetään vain yksi keskustelu kerrallaan. Kokeessa tutkitaan myös eroja kolmen ja neljän samanaikaisen chat-keskustelun välillä. Tulosten perusteella vastausaika ensimmäiseen viestiin oli nopeampi ensimmäisellä layoutilla. Muut tehokkuuden mittarit eivät eronneet layoutien välillä. Kun samanaikaisten keskustelujen määrää kasvatettiin kolmesta neljään, stressin määrä kasvoi kuitenkin merkittävästi ensimmäisessä layoutissa, mutta ei toisessa layoutissa. Kaikki tehokkuuden mittarit laskivat, kun samanaikaisten keskustelujen määrä nostettiin kolmesta neljään. Samanaikaisten keskustelujen määrä ei kuitenkaan vaikuttanut tyytyväisyyden mittareihin muiden kuin stressin osalta. Koska vastausaika varsinaisiin kysymyksiin ei eronnut layoutien välillä, ja yhtä moni ihminen piti enemmän ensimmäisestä kuin toisestakin layoutista, kumpaakin layoutia voidaan suositella käytettäväksi chat-asiakaspalvelijan käyttöliittymässä. Jos vastausajan nopeus ensimmäiseen viestiin on tärkeä, ensimmäinen layout saattaa olla hieman parempi vaihtoehto. Samaan aikaan n

SupplementMeeting Abstract: S69

Conduct disorder (CD) and anxiety disorders (ADs) are often comorbid and both are characterized by hyper-sensitivity to threat, and reduced structural and functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Previous studies of CD have not taken account of ADs nor directly compared connectivity in the two disorders. We examined three groups of young women: 23 presenting CD and lifetime AD; 30 presenting lifetime AD and not CD; and 17 with neither disorder (ND). Participants completed clinical assessments and diffusion-weighted and resting-state functional MRI scans. The uncinate fasciculus was reconstructed using tractography and manual dissection, and structural measures extracted. Correlations of resting-state activity between amygdala and OFC seeds were computed. The CD + AD and AD groups showed similarly reduced structural integrity of the left uncinate compared to ND, even after adjusting for IQ, psychiatric comorbidity, and childhood maltreatment. Uncinate integrity was associated with harm avoidance traits among AD-only women, and with the interaction of poor anger control and anxiety symptoms among CD + AD women. Groups did not differ in functional connectivity. Reduced uncinate integrity observed in CD + AD and AD-only women may reflect deficient emotion regulation in response to threat, common to both disorders, while other neural mechanisms determine the behavioral response.

DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.03.019

This study investigates suicide and overdoses in 1,119 consecutive patients (64% women), 15 to 34 years of age, presenting at the emergency department after self-poisoning from1994 to 2000 and followed regarding death to 2006. Regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses were performed for suicide and other causes of death. The patients had about a 60 times higher risk (SMR=61.95) of death due to suicide and 26 times higher (SMR=26.47) for all-cause mortality. Men had a nearly 2 times higher risk for suicide than women and half of the suicides occurred during the first 2 years after admission. Poisoning was the most common suicide method and early prevention of self-poisoning is crucial to reducing future deaths.

Objective: To assess excess mortality among suicide attempters compared to the general population. Method: Remaining life expectancy was calculated for a nationwide cohort of all 187 894 persons 18 years or older hospitalised for the first time attempted suicide in Sweden in 1971-2010. Results: Life expectancy was shortened throughout the lifespan for both men and women debuting with suicide attempt. The reduction in life expectancy for men debuting with a suicide attempt at 20 years of age was 18 years while the reduction for men debuting at 50 years of age was 10 years. For women attempting suicide, the life expectancy was shortened by 11 and 8 years respectively. The gender difference in life expectancy attenuated in patients making their first suicide attempt at age 70 years or older. Suicide deaths explained about 20% of the total mortality within 10 years of the suicide attempt and 5% in those with duration of four decades since the first suicide attempt. Conclusion: The life expectancy is dramatically reduced in patients attempting suicide. With most excess deaths being due to physical health conditions, public efforts should be directed both towards improving physical health and to prevent suicide.

Hotkeys provide fast interactions to support expert performance. Compared to the traditional pointer-based selection of commands, hotkeys have the advantage in reducing task completion time. However, research shows that users have a tendency of favoring menu selections. This is partially caused by how hotkeys are displayed in most linear and toolbar menus. This thesis provides a review of key findings from literature that aim to promote hotkeys. On the base of these findings, this thesis develops design criteria for hotkey displays that promote hotkey use. This thesis also proposes a new interaction technique which displays hotkeys on the keyboard. Finally, a cognitive model is constructed to describe a user’s decision-making process of choosing between hotkeys and pointer-based selections when this new hotkey display technique is presented.

Background and aims: There are significant gaps in knowledge regarding the role of childhood adversity, interpersonal violence, and suicidal behavior in hypersexual disorder (HD). The aim of this study was to investigate interpersonal violence in hypersexual men compared with healthy volunteers and the experience of violence in relation to suicidal behavior. Methods: This case-control study includes 67 male patients with HD and 40 healthy male volunteers. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) and the Karolinska Interpersonal Violence Scale (KIVS) were used for assessing early life adversity and interpersonal violence in childhood and in adult life. Suicidal behavior (attempts and ideation) was assessed with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (version 6.0) and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale - Self-rating. Results: Hypersexual men reported more exposure to violence in childhood and more violent behavior as adults compared with healthy volunteers. Suicide attempters (n = 8, 12%) reported higher KIVS total score, more used violence as a child, more exposure to violence as an adult as well as higher score on CTQ-SF subscale measuring sexual abuse (SA) compared with hypersexual men without suicide attempt. Discussion: Hypersexuality was associated with interpersonal violence with higher total scores in patients with a history of suicide attempt. The KIVS subscale exposure to interpersonal violence as a child was validated using the CTQ-SF but can be complemented with questions focusing on SA for full assessment of early life adversity. Conclusion: Childhood adversity is an important factor in HD and interpersonal violence might be related to suicidal behavior in hypersexual men.

Supplement: 1, Meeting Abstract: M69

Background: Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a serious health risk behavior that forms the basis of a tentative diagnosis in DSM-5, NSSI Disorder (NSSID). To date, established treatments specific to NSSI or NSSID are scarce. As a first step in evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and utility of a novel treatment for adolescents with NSSID, we conducted an open trial of emotion regulation individual therapy for adolescents (ERITA): a 12-week, behavioral treatment aimed at directly targeting both NSSI and its proposed underlying mechanism of emotion regulation difficulties. Methods: Seventeen girls (aged 13–17; mean = 15.31) with NSSID were enrolled in a study adopting an uncontrolled open trial design with self-report and clinician-rated assessments of NSSI and other self-destructive behaviors, emotion regulation difficulties, borderline personality features, and global functioning administered at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up. Measures of NSSI and emotion regulation difficulties were also administered weekly during treatment. Results: Ratings of treatment credibility and expectancy and the treatment completion rate (88%) were satisfactory, and both therapeutic alliance and treatment attendance were strong. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed significant improvements associated with large effect sizes in past-month NSSI frequency, emotion regulation difficulties, self-destructive behaviors, and global functioning, as well as a medium effect size in past-month NSSI versatility, from pre- to post-treatment. Further, all of these improvements were either maintained or further improved upon at 6-month follow-up. Finally, change in emotion regulation difficulties mediated improvements in NSSI over the course of treatment. Conclusions: Results suggest the acceptability, feasibility, and utility of this treatment for adolescents with NSSID.

Background and aims: Hypersexual Disorder (HD) defined as non-paraphilic sexual desire disorder with components of compulsivity, impulsivity and behavioral addiction, was proposed as a diagnosis in the DSM 5. Some overlapping features between HD and substance use disorder including common neurotransmitter systems and dysregulated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function have been reported. In this study, comprising 67 male patients diagnosed with HD and 39 healthy male volunteers, we aimed to identify HPA-axis coupled CpG-sites, in which modifications of the epigenetic profile are associated with hypersexuality. Methods: The genome-wide methylation pattern was measured in whole blood using the Illumina Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip, measuring the methylation state of over 850 K CpG sites. Prior to analysis, the global DNA methylation pattern was pre-processed according to standard protocols and adjusted for white blood cell type heterogeneity. We included CpG sites located within 2000 bp of the transcriptional start site of the following HPAaxis coupled genes: Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH), corticotropin releasing hormone binding protein (CRHBP), corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1), corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 2 (CRHR2), FKBP5 and the glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1). We performed multiple linear regression models of methylation M-values to a categorical variable of hypersexuality, adjusting for depression, DST non-suppression status, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire total score and plasma levels of TNF-alpha and IL-6. Results: 76 individual CpG sites were tested, and four of these were nominally significant (p < 0.05), associated with the genes CRH, CRHR2 and NR3C1. Cg23409074 – located 48 bp upstream of the TSS of the CRH gene – was significantly hypomethylated in hypersexual patients after corrections for multiple testing using the FDR-method. Methylation levels of cg23409074 were positively correlated with gene, Supplement: 1Meeting Abstract: OP-47

Objective Emotion regulation group therapy (ERGT) has shown promising results in several efficacy trials. However, it has not been evaluated outside a research setting. In order to increase the availability of empirically supported treatments for individuals with borderline personality disorder and deliberate self-harm, an evaluation of ERGT in routine clinical care was conducted with therapists of different professional backgrounds who had received brief intensive training in ERGT prior to trial onset. Design Multi-site evaluation, using an uncontrolled open trial design with assessments at pretreatment, post-treatment and 6-month follow-up. &&Setting 14 adult outpatient psychiatric clinics across Sweden. Participants Ninety-five women (mean age=25.1 years) with borderline personality disorder (both threshold and subthreshold) and repeated self-harm were enrolled in the study. Ninety-three per cent of participants completed the post-treatment assessment and 88% completed the follow-up assessment. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcome was self-harm frequency as measured with the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory. Secondary outcomes included self-harm versatility, emotion dysregulation, other self-destructive behaviours, depression, anxiety, stress symptoms and interpersonal and vocational difficulties. Intervention ERGT is an adjunctive, 14-week, acceptance-based behavioural group treatment that directly targets both self-harm and its proposed underlying mechanism of emotion dysregulation. Results At post-treatment, intent-to-treat analyses revealed a significant improvement associated with a moderate effect size on the primary outcome of self-harm frequency (51%, reduction; Cohen's d=0.52, p<0.001) as well as significant improvements in the secondary outcomes of self-harm versatility, emotion dysregulation, other self-destructive behaviours and general psychiatric symptomatology. These results were either maintained or further improved on a

Background: Despite common mental disorders (CMDs) being a main reason for preterm exit from the labour market, there is limited knowledge regarding healthcare use around the time of being granted disability pension (DP) due to CMD. The aim was to study specialized healthcare use before and after being granted DP due to CMD and whether these trajectories differed before and after changes in DP granting criteria in Sweden in 2008. Methods: Included individuals lived in Sweden, aged 19-64 years with incident DP due to CMD before (wave 1, 2005-06, n = 24 298) or after (wave 2, 2009-10, n = 4056) the changes in 2008. Healthcare trajectories during a 7-year window were assessed by generalized estimating equations. Between-and within-wave differences were examined by interaction models. Results: Psychiatric healthcare increased until the year preceding DP and declined thereafter, with one exception; such outpatient care kept increasing in wave 1 following DP. In the year preceding DP, 4.6 and 19.2% of the individuals in wave 1 had psychiatric in-and specialized outpatient care, respectively, compared with 7.9 and 46.6% in wave 2. No clear pattern was observed regarding somatic healthcare. The slopes of the different DP waves differed mainly during DP granting years (1 year prior to 1 year after), showing a sharper decline in wave 2. Conclusion: Transition to DP due to CMD seems to be associated with changes in psychiatric healthcare use, with higher rates in the year preceding DP. Outpatient healthcare patterns somewhat differed among those granted DP after stricter rules were introduced.