[Psychosis in three patients with vitiligo]

Psychotic disorders have been observed in association with some autoimmune disorders. Moreover, autoimmune mechanisms have been recently considered in evaluation of schizophrenia spectrum disease managements. Vitiligo is one of the autoimmune diseases, but there is no report of vitiligo association with psychosis. We report three patients with vitiligo and schizophrenia spectrum disease that are indicative of the role of autoimmunity in psychosis. Moreover, unusual manifestation and poor response to treatment in the reported cases show that autoimmunity can complicate the prognosis of psychosis

[Opiate department's experiences of the established therapeutic relationship in mthadone centers: qualitative study]

Methadone maintenance therapy is one of the treatment choices for opiate users. Understanding opiate dependants' experiences of their treatment period is important for continuing the treatment with methadone and assessing their experiences may help to revise the standards of methadone centers and thus to improve the quality of treatment. This study aims to describe the structure and essence of opiate dependants' experiences with methadone centers during treatment. It was a qualitative phenomenological approach in which participants were selected from opiate dependants referred to methadone centers in Kerman city in 2007 by applying purposive sampling continued until data saturation and obtaining a sample size of 32 participants. Data were collected by in-depth interviews. Colaize' s Method was applied for data analysis. The rigor of the present study was based on transferability and credibility. In whole, 26 themes were extracted and put into structural components. The structural components were put into topical components including: 1. positive therapeutic alliance 2. Negative therapeutic alliance and 3. Therapeutic alliance requests. These components show the basic structure of participants' experiences of therapeutic relationship in methadone centers. Client - based strategy in methadone clinics, not only leads to a positive therapeutic alliance, but can persuade patients to continue their treatment programs for long time period. Establishing a good relationship with patients in methadone centers during treatment procedure is an effective way to meet the goals of methadone maintenance treatment

Rare variant of lycanthropy and ecstasy: case report

Lycanthropy is an unusual belief or delusion in which the patient thinks that he/she has been transformed into an animal. In rare cases, the patient believes that another person has been transformed into an animal. In this case report, a patient who had an uncommon variant of lycanthropy is introduced. The patient's symptoms had appeared after consumption of ecstasy. This shows the occurrence of uncommon and rare psychosis after ecstasy drug use especially in susceptible patients to schizophrenia. Ecstasy can induce paranoid psychosis similar to schizophrenia. It seems that in the presented case, ecstasy had a role in the incidence of the underlying suceptibility of the patient to schizophrenia

[Relationship of emotional characteristics and depression with intelligence quotient in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder]

Attention Deficit Hyeperactivity Disorder [ADHD] is a relatively prevalent disorder in children and is associated with some other disorders including depression. This problem also affects the emotional characteristics and intelligence quotient. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship of Emotional Characteristics [EC] and depression with Intelligence Quotient [IQ] in children with ADHD. Fifty six children with ADHD and fifty six normal children matched for age and sex were selected. To determine EC, depression and IQ, the Bender - Gestalt test, Children Depression Scale, and the Raven Progressive Matrices were administered respectively. There was a positive significant correlation between EC and IQ [P<0.01], depression and IQ [P<0.01]. According to 2-variable regression analysis the regression for IQ on EC and depression was significant [P<0.01].The R2 quotient showed that nearly 41% of the IQ score was accounted for by two other independent variables of which the role of EC was 32%. Also, the results of the regression analysis indicated that the addition of a depression variable to the regression equation only increases the prediction power by 9% and among the mentioned variables, EC was the best predicators of IQ in ADHD children. Finally a t test showed a significant difference between the studied variables in ADHD and normal groups [P<0.01]. Considering the high correlation between EC and IQ as well as the significant difference between the children with ADHD and normal children, monitoring of EC has an important role in increasing the affected children's IQ

[ case report of blood sucking behavior in a patient with borderline personality disorder]

Self-mutilation is defined as intentional damaging of the body without intention to die. Patients with borderline personality disorder frequently mutilate themselves by means of cutting, burning and abrading their skin. In this case report, a patient with borderline personality disorder is described who has cut his skin and suck his blood Several times. He had also the history of killing pigeons and sucking their blood. One time he had sucked his wife's blood. Blood sucking is the main theme of Bram Stocker's novel in which the character of the novel, Dracula, sucked the blood of human beings. Here we present blood sucking as a real symptom and not an imaginary one. This symptom associated with self cutting is well understood in borderline personality disorder