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Background: Metacognitive functions play a key role in understanding which psychological variables underlying the personality might lead a person with a severe mental disorder to commit violent acts against others. The aims of this study were to: (a) investigate the differences between patients with poor metacognitive functioning (PM group) and patients with good metacognitive functioning (GM group) in relation to a history of violence; (b) investigate the differences between the two groups in relation to aggressive behavior during a 1-year follow-up; and (c) analyze the predictors of aggressive behavior. Methods: In a prospective cohort study, patients with severe mental disorders with and without a lifetime history of serious violence were assessed with a large set of standardized instruments and were evaluated bi-monthly with MOAS in order to monitor any aggressive behavior. The total sample included 180 patients: 56% outpatients and 44% inpatients, and the majority were male (75%) with a mean age of 44 (± 9.8) years, and half of them had a history of violence. The sample was split into two groups: poor metacognition (PM) group and good metacognition (GM) group, according to MAI evaluation scores. Results: The PM patients reported a history of violence more frequently than GM patients, during the 1-year follow-up, but no differences between groups in aggressive and violent behavior were found. The strongest predictors of aggressive behavior were: borderline and passive-aggressive personality traits and a history of violence, anger, and hostility. The metacognitive functions alone did not predict aggressive behavior, but metacognitive functions interacted with hostility and angry reactions in predicting aggressive behavior. Conclusions: This study led to some important conclusions: (a) some aspects closely related to violence are predictive of aggressive behavior only in patients with poor metacognition, thus good metacognition is a protective factor; (b) poor met

Objective: The relationship between alcohol and substance use and the risk of violence exhibited by patients with mental disorders is under-researched. This prospective cohort study aims to compare patients with severe mental disorders and with different substance use behaviors in terms of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, hostility, impulsivity and aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, this study aims to assess differences in violent behaviors during a 1-year monitoring follow-up. Methods: A total of 378 participants with severe mental disorders from Italian residential facilities and from four Departments of Mental Health (244 outpatients and 134 residential patients) were enrolled. Participants were categorized as Persons with Current Substance Use, Persons with Former Substance Use and Persons with Non-Substance Use. All these patients underwent a complex multidimensional assessment, including the lifetime and current substance use; a subsample of outpatients was also assessed with a laboratory substance assay including the testing for specific substances. We assessed the differences among these three groups in hostility, impulsivity and aggressive behaviors. Results: The results of the close 1-year monitoring show a significantly higher risk of violence for patients with severe mental disorders Persons with Current Substance Use compared to Persons with Former Substance Use and Persons with Non-Substance Use. Persons with Current Substance Use showed significantly higher scores for irritability, negativism and verbal assault compared to Persons with Non-Substance Use. Persons with Former Substance Use showed significantly higher scores for lifetime history of aggressive behaviors compared with patients with Persons with Non-Substance Use. Conclusion: These findings suggest that patients with comorbid mental illness and substance use disorders should be referred for specific interventions to reduce aggressive behavior and ensure patient well-being and

Ophthalmic surgery in the past few years has made a lot of progress by combining the most advanced laser techniques with the standard procedures for cataract, corneal graft, and the correction of refractive defects such as myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism, and presbyopia. There is therefore pressing request from advanced and specialist hospital to have laser platforms available (excimer and femto). This chapter deals about the strategy of Tuscany Region (Italy) that, starting from the request of Careggi University Hospital, called a competition designed by its central office ESTAR to satisfy initial specific request but also other possible regional authorities requests with known cost of equipment, disposables, maintenance and key operators for the upcoming 5 years.

The aim of the project was to investigate differences between outpatients with Severe Mental Disorders (SMDs) with and without a history of Self-Harm behaviour (SHb) and/or Violent behaviour against other people (Vb) in relation to: (a) socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, (b) violent behaviour during a 1-year FU, (c) predictors of SHb and Vb during the FU. Outpatients with SMDs, with and without a history of Vb were enrolled. They were divided in four groups: patients with lifetime Vb (V), patients with both Vb and SHb (V-SH), patients with only SHb (SH) and patients with no history of SHb and Vb (control group, CONT). The frequency and severity of SHb and Vb during the FU were assessed every two weeks by the MOAS. Overall 246 patients were enrolled. BPRS-E Depression item, the SLOF Social acceptability, the BDHI Indirect Aggression, the BIS Motor Impulsiveness and the STAXI-2 Control-Out showed significant correlations with all the four groups (p < 0.030). V and V-SH patient groups reached higher scores in all MOAS sub-scales. Age among the SH group and BPRS-E affect-anxiety subscale among the V group significantly predicted aggression against people. In people with SMDs a history of SHb or Vb is associated with different medium-term outcomes.

The original version of this Article contained errors. In the title of the paper, the word “in” was incorrectly given as “In”. In the original Table 1, cells in column six were not merged correctly and the table has been replaced. Finally, the original Figures 1 and 2 have been replaced with higher resolution images. These errors have now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article. The accompanying Supplementary Information file was correct at the time of publication.

In conclusion DS could represent another condition in which the evaluation of metabolic indexes, such as CoQ10 and SHBG, could fournish reliable indications on the metabolic status of the patients, since basal TSH values, even when clearly altered, do not allow to focus a hypothyroidism when considered alone. These considerations should be kept in mind when a thyroid dysfunction is suspected in DS, and the metabolic assessment should be carefully evaluated before starting a thyroid replacement therapy in such a condition