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Background The potential relationships between sleep–wake behaviors and emotional/disruptive problems in otherwise healthy school-aged children are unclear. Methods A parental questionnaire was developed for the epidemiologic survey of children’s sleep and wake behavioral patterns. The questions covered a wide range of features including sleep length (school days, weekends), time to fall asleep, night awakenings, bedtime and nighttime sleep-related behaviors, daytime sleepiness, irritability, and tiredness. To assess psychiatric symptomatology, the Rutter Scale B2 was completed by teachers. In addition to the total score, sub-scores of emotional, hyperactivity, and conduct problems were obtained. The representative population sample comprised 779 children (403 girls), with an age range of 6–11 years. Results Hyperactivity and conduct problems at school in boys were both associated with parental reports of bedtime resistance. Hyperactivity was also associated with longer sleep duration during weekends. Conduct and emotional problems in girls were associated with earlier bedtime during school days. Emotional problems in girls were also associated with longer sleep durations in school days and weekends. Conclusion Bedtime resistance was the only sleep behavior associated with either hyperactivity or conduct problems in children, and longer sleep durations appear to occur more frequently in children with both hyperactive or emotional problems. Information about good sleep hygiene at bedtime may help parents setting sleep limits.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the factor structure of the Rutter Teacher Questionnaire in Portuguese primary school children. METHOD: The Rutter Teacher Questionnaire, a 26-item scale covering a variety of behavioral problems, was completed by teachers of 877 children, aged 6 to 11 years. Data were subjected to factor analysis using the principal components solution with varimax rotation. RESULTS: The factorial analysis in total sample revealed three factors explaining 38.88% of the total variance. The factors contained items representing hyperactivity/conduct (Factor 1), anxious/depressive (Factor 2) and truancy/stealing (Factor 3). The highest correlations between factors scores were for Factor 1 and Factor 3. These Factors scores were higher in boys than girls and correlated with lower social class. All three Factors scores correlated with school performance. The comparison between separate factorial structures for the samples of boys and girls revealed a considerable overlap. CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of the items contained on Factor 1 appears to be related with the category of hyperkinetic conduct disorder used by the International Classification of Diseases-10. Results suggest that the Portuguese language version of the Rutter Teacher Questionnaire possesses good psychometric properties and may be considered a useful instrument for measuring children's behavior problems.

Introduction The present work aims to characterize in higher education students the reliability and validity of a brief self-reported measure to assess insomnia complaints and perceived sleep quality (Gomes et al., 2001, 2005, 2011), used from more than a decade by our research team members, and henceforth labeled the Brief Insomnia and Quality of Sleep Scale (BIQSS). Materials and methods In study 1, the 7-items scale now termed BIQSS was developed, as part of a larger self-response questionnaire on higher education sleep-wake patterns, and its internal consistency and item homogeneity were analyzed based on the answers of 1654 undergraduates. In study 2, focused mainly on validity, 323 undergraduate and master degree students completed the BIQSS together with the PSQI (Buysse et al., 1989). Using an additional question on perceived sleep problems, item discriminative power and ROC analyses were also performed. Higher BIQSS scores equate to poorer sleep, and each item is rated in a 5 point scale from 0 to 4 (or in reversed way when appropriate), thus total score may range from 0 to 28. Results Internal consistency was assessed by Chronbach alpha, which was.73 in study 1 and .78 in study 2. Corrected item-total correlations ranged from .32 to .57 (study 1), and from .40 to .60 (study 2). All items contributed to the internal consistency of the scale, as shown by drops in Chronbach alpha values when excluding each item. As to validity (study 2), the correlation coefficient between the BIQSS and the PSQI score was r = 0.65 (p 0,001). Students that reported a sleep problem (n = 40) obtained significantly higher BIQSS scores in comparison to those who deny having any sleep problem, and all items were able to discriminate between them. In ROC analysis, the Area Under the Curve (AUC) was .832, indicating moderate precision/acuity. Conclusion The BIQSS is composed by a small number of items, is very easy to administer in higher education students, and seems to possess reasonable reliability, validity, and acuity. Therefore, it may constitute a convenient tool to screen for insomnia and poor sleep complaints, both for research purposes and in clinical settings. Further studies are now needed in other samples. Acknowledgements Successive research studies leading to the present work have been supported by different entities: Dep. of Education – Univ. Aveiro; Projects LEIES (FCG), SPASHE (FCT); Research Unit CCPSF and CIECC (FCT).

We performed a linkage analysis on 25 extended multiplex Portuguese families segregating for bipolar disorder, by use of a high-density single-nucleotide-polymorphism (SNP) genotyping assay, the GeneChip Human Mapping 10K Array (HMA10K). Of these families, 12 were used for a direct comparison of the HMA10K with the traditional 10-cM microsatellite marker set and the more dense 4-cM marker set. This comparative analysis indicated the presence of significant linkage peaks in the SNP assay in chromosomal regions characterized by poor coverage and low information content on the microsatellite assays. The HMA10K provided consistently high information and enhanced coverage throughout these regions. Across the entire genome, the HMA10K had an average information content of 0.842 with 0.21-Mb intermarker spacing. In the 12-family set, the HMA10K-based analysis detected two chromosomal regions with genomewide significant linkage on chromosomes 6q22 and 11p11; both regions had failed to meet this strict threshold with the microsatellite assays. The full 25-family collection further strengthened the findings on chromosome 6q22, achieving genomewide significance with a maximum nonparametric linkage (NPL) score of 4.20 and a maximum LOD score of 3.56 at position 125.8 Mb. In addition to this highly significant finding, several other regions of suggestive linkage have also been identified in the 25-family data set, including two regions on chromosome 2 (57 Mb, NPL = 2.98; 145 Mb, NPL = 3.09), as well as regions on chromosomes 4 (91 Mb, NPL = 2.97), 16 (20 Mb, NPL = 2.89), and 20 (60 Mb, NPL = 2.99). We conclude that at least some of the linkage peaks we have identified may have been largely undetected in previous whole-genome scans for bipolar disorder because of insufficient coverage or information content, particularly on chromosomes 6q22 and 11p11. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Schizophrenia is a common psychiatric disorder with a complex genetic etiology. To understand the genetic basis of this syndrome in Portuguese Island populations, we performed a genome-wide scan of 29 families with schizophrenia, which identified a single region on 5q31-5q35 with strong linkage (NPL=3.09, P=0.0012 at D5S820). Empirical simulations set a genome-wide threshold of NPL=3.10 for significant linkage. Additional support for this locus in schizophrenia comes from higher-density mapping and mapping of 11 additional families. The combined set of 40 families had a peak NPL=3.28 (P=0.00066) at markers D5S2112-D5S820. These data and previous linkage findings from other investigators provide strong and consistent evidence for this genomic region as a susceptibility locus for schizophrenia. Exploratory analyses of a novel phenotype, psychosis, in families with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder detected evidence for linkage to the same markers as found in schizophrenia (peak NPL=3.03, P=0.0012 at D5S820), suggesting that this locus may be responsible for the psychotic symptoms observed in both diseases. Molecular Psychiatry (2004) 9, 213-218. doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001418 Published online 30 December 2003

A functional polymorphism in the promoter region of the DRD2 gene has been found to be associated with schizophrenia in Japanese(1,2) and Swedish populations.(3) We attempted to replicate these findings in a genetically homogeneous Portuguese population using a family-based study design. Analysis of 78 trios revealed evidence for association between the -141 C Ins allele and schizophrenia using the haplotype relative risk (HRR) method (chi(2) = 9.30, P = 0.0023). Further examination of this sample using an alternative family-based association analysis method, the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT), of 33 informative matings from the Portuguese trios provided evidence for an allelic association and linkage disequilibrium between the insertion allele and schizophrenia (chi(2) = 8.76, P = 0.0031). These consistent results using two alternative family-based association analysis methods replicate the findings of previous reports, and thus further implicate a potential role for the dopamine-2 receptor in the genetic etiology of schizophrenia.

In this paper we review some of the best available evidence to argue that screening for perinatal depression should be systematically conducted since pregnancy. Our view is organized in ten topics: (1) perinatal depression high prevalence; (2) its potential negative consequences, including maternal, conjugal, foetal, infantile, and child effects; (3) its under-detection and treatment; (4) its stigma; (5) the professionals and women misconceptions related to perinatal depression; (6) the availability of valid and short self-report screening instruments for perinatal depression and (7) their acceptability; (8) the increase in recognition, diagnosis, and treatment rates in comparison with routine practice; (9) the opportunity, given the large number of contacts that women have with health professionals in the perinatal period; and (10) perinatal depression screening potential cost-effectiveness.

Introduction/Aim Postpartum depression interferes negatively with mother9s well-being and infant9s development. The aim of this study was to investigate whether Positive Affect in late pregnancy was a protective factor for later Postpartum depression. Methods A total of 491 pregnant women filled in the Profile of Mood States (POMS), the Beck Depression Inventory, socio-demographic characteristics, psychosocial variables and answered a Psychiatric Interview. After delivery 272 women participated for a second time. Results POMS factor analyses revealed a 30-item scale in pregnancy and a 27-item scale in post partum. Based on both factor analyses two dimensions of affect could be determined: a negative affect (NA) and a positive affect (PA) of affect could be determined. NA was associated with more intense depressive symptomatology, more self-perceived stress, low self-reported social support and low quality of life in pregnancy as well as post partum. By contrast, PA was negatively associated with these variables. In pregnancy, NA was a predictor of post partum depression (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, DSM-IV/OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.3 to 3.4, p=0.003; International Classification of Diseases, ICD-10/OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.5 to 3.0, p Conclusion Opposed dimensions of affect could be appropriately assessed using POMS. Reinforcing PA in late pregnancy may help preventing Postpartum depression.

The aim of the present study was to determine the frequency of emotional and disruptive behaviours and the rates of hyperactivity, conduct and emotional problems in school-aged children. The Rutter Children’s Behaviour Questionnaire for completion by teachers was used to assess psychiatric symptoms. A total deviance score is derived from the sum of scores for the individual items (n= 26). An emotional sub-score can be obtained from the sum of scores of four items (worried, miserable, fearful, tears on arrival at school), a conduct sub-score obtained from the sum of scores of six items (destructive, fights, disobedient, lies, steals, bullies) and a hyperactivity sub-score obtained from the sum of scores of three items (restless/overactive, poor concentration, fidgety/squirmy). The sample comprised 877 children (446 girls) with an age range between 6 and 11 years. Compared to girls, boys showed a significantly higher frequency of restless/overactive (15.8% vs. 5.8%), fidgety/squirmy (9.3% vs. 3.6%), fights (6.3% vs. 2.2%), disobedient (6.0% vs. 2.7%), bullies (5.3% vs. 2.0%) and irritable (5.1% vs. 1.8%) behaviours. Rates of conduct and hyperactivity behavioural problems were also significantly more frequent in boys than in girls (conduct problems: 17.9% vs. 8.1%; hyperactivity problems: 20.4% vs. 9.6%). The high rates of disruptive behaviours and problems in boys are in accordance with the literature.

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