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Objective: This study aims to identify potential homogeneous subgroups of college students based on their drinking patterns and then compare them on demographics, anxiety, depression, perceived stress, and resilience. Methods: Participants (N = 1282; 80% females) were recruited among college students during lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia. The mean age of participants was 22.06 years. They completed an online survey consisting of a battery of questionnaires measuring psychopathology. The Latent Class Analysis (LCA) on Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) items was utilized to estimate different drinking subgroups among college students. These subgroups were then compared on demographic and psychopathological characteristics using one-way ANOVA. Results: The LCA estimated three subgroups: light drinkers (55.2%), at-risk drinkers (35.4%), and problem drinkers (9.4%). Problem drinkers had the highest levels of perceived stress, depression, and anxiety as well as the lowest resilience. Conclusion: Participants with problem drinking profile differed from at-risk drinking students mainly by the consequences of drinking and the frequency of binge drinking. The differences between the findings of the present study and previous research could be attributed to some extent to the situation associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at the time of data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ) is a widely used measure for psychosis risk assessment. The primary aim of this study is to examine the reliability and discriminant validity of the Slovak version of the 16-item Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ-16) in a sample of university students. A sample of 1276 (75% female) university students completed a cross-sectional online survey consisting of a large battery of scales measuring psychopathology, social functioning, and well-being. The mean age was M = 22.59 and SD = 3.94. On a bivariate level, the prodromal symptoms severity measured by the PQ-16 was associated with depression, anxiety, lower well-being, and more severe problems in social functioning. The PQ-16 explained a significant variability of social functioning above and beyond the effect of depression and anxiety. Results revealed sufficient internal reliability (α = 0.774 and ω = 0.761) of the scale. The Slovak version of the PQ-16 has sound reliability and shows an adequate pattern of association with depression, anxiety, and social functioning. These promising findings need to be replicated on an independent sample of help-seeking individuals or a high-risk population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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One of the primary goals in theoretical concepts of substance addiction treatment is to prevent the substance from entering into the central nervous system and thus to prevent its receptor effects. Immunological treatment presents a practical perspective of this approach. Active immunization includes vaccines that activate the immune system to produce drug-specific antibodies, while passive immunization consists of administration of specific monoclonal antibodies or their derivates that neutralize the drug effects. Immunotherapy of substance addictions is under development and its treatment modalities are in various phases of clinical research, with both partial achievements and failures. For clinical practice, the successful completion of immunotherapy clinical trials and their approval by competent medicine agencies would be beneficial. Thus, immunotherapy could become an integral component of the treatment for specific substance addictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]