Preventive and Therapeutic Mental Health Care after the Earthquake- Expert Opinion from the Psychiatric Association of Turkey. / Deprem Sonrasi Erken Dönemde Koruyucu ve Tedavi Edici Ruh Sagligi Hizmeti-Türkiye Psikiyatri Dernegi Uzman Görüsü.

Two major earthquakes hit Turkey at the Kahramanmaras region on February 6th 2023. The earthquakes affected almost 15 million individuals, resulting in more than forty thousand deaths, thousands of wounded and the destruction of ancient cities of humankind. Immediately after the earthquakes, the Psychiatric Association of Turkey organized an educational event to address the needs for a guidance on how to approach a trauma of such a big scale. The experts in this educational event summarized their presentations and prepared this review to guide the mental health professionals serving victims of this disaster. The review summarizes the early symptoms of trauma, and puts a framework on the principles of psychological first aid, the approach at the initial stages of the disaster, principles of planning, triage, and psychosocial support systems and the proper use of medications. The text covers the evaluation of the impact of trauma, aligning psychiatric practice with psychosocial interventions, the improvement of counseling skills and methods to better understand the mind during the acute post trauma phase. A set of presentations highlight the challenges in child psychiatry, brings a systematic overview to the earthquake and discuss the symptomatology, first aid and intervention principles in children and adolescents. Last, the forensic psychiatric perspective is presented, followed by a piece on the essentials of delivering bad news and the review is concluded with the emphasis on burnout, a syndrome to avoid particularly for field professionals, and possible preventive measures. Keywords: Disaster, trauma, psychosocial support, psychological first aid, acute stress disorder, post traumatic stress disorder.

A pre-evaluation of psychological factors may positively affect the outcomes of smoking cessation treatments: A comparison in terms of smoking behavior.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to compare smoking behavior in out-patients in terms of psychological factors with a view to supporting cessation treatment. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional and analytical study through face-to-face interviews by the primary care physician with 765 volunteer participants who applied to our hospital for any reason between March and July 2019. The questionnaire administered had two parts: questions about sociodemographic characteristics and usage of tobacco and tobacco products, and questions of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMBS), and Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND). RESULTS: The study was completed with 765 participants of which 53.1% (n=406) were female and 46.9% (n=359) male. Multidimensional perceived social support scale mean score of the participants was 69.9±15.2 (min=12, max=84). There was a significant relation between mean MPSS and mean WEMBS (p<0.05). As nicotine scores increased, the mean scores both in MPSS and WEMBS decreased (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that the results of the psychometric preliminary evaluations should be customized for individuals applying to smoking cessation clinics and that including the individual's close social connections in the process can facilitate the decision to quit, thus increase smoking cessation rates.

Retrospective Analysis of Psychiatry Specialization Theses Made Between 1981-2018 in Turkey. / Türkiye’de Psikiyatri Alaninda 1981-2018 Yillari Arasinda Yapilmis Uzmanlik Tezlerinin Degerlendirilmesi.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to qualitatively evaluate the views to the Psychiatry specilization theses, variables affecting publishing of these, and the relationship with the academic career of authors of these theses in Turkey. METHOD: Theses were searched from the website of Higher Education Board Presidency National Dissertations Center using the terms "psychiatry, mental health and diseases". Only the theses with full texts were included in the study. The publications associated with these theses were searched using SCI and SCI-E, Google, Google Scholar and PubMed by using the names of authors and their advisors. RESULTS: We were able to find 910 theses. 748 of the 910 were completed in universities. The overall publication rate of the theses was 37.7%. 19.2% were indexed in PubMed, 28.5% in SCI and SCI-E and 31.9% in Google Scholar. Publication of a thesis was significantly associated with the field of research, the title of the advisor and whether the owner of the thesis had later become a faculty member. Residents who were trained at universities were more likely to publish as a first author. Being first author was associated with later academic career. In addition, those who continued their career as an academic continued to publish on a similar subject more than those who did not. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the type of the research, title of the advisor, enrolling an academic career were associated with the publication of the theses. We hope our results would help better publication of the theses in the future.

The Factors Affecting the Relationship between Remission Status and Employment in Chronic Schizophrenia Patients.

OBJECTIVE: Symptomatic remission have substantial effects in long-term schizophrenia outcome, but exact determinants of the employment. In this study, the relationship between employment and symptomatic remission in chronic schizophrenia patients and other factors related to employment were investigated. METHODS: 100 patients interviewed were evaluated by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Functional Recovery Scale in Schizophrenia (FROGS), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Quality of Life Scale (QoL) and Subjective Recovery Assessment Scale (SubRAS). Sociodemographic variables, clinical features, antipsychotic dose and past working history obtained from patient interviews were investigated. RESULTS: The patients of 40% who participate in the study were symptomatic remission, but only 53.5% of these patients weren't employed. Young age, especially, -regardless of the onset of illness- working a job in the past, low and moderate use CPED (equivalent doses according to chlorpromazine), shorter disease duration, symptomatic remission was found to be closely related to employment. While QoL, FROGS, GAF, and SubRAS total scores of employment group were higher than the unemployment group, PANSS total scores in the unemployment group were higher than that of the employment group. There was a high correlation between the scales and employment status. CONCLUSION: Employment status was closely related with the remission status. This study supports that symptomatic remission alone is not decisive for employment. It was found that younger age, past working history (before or after the disease), low and intermediate CPED antipsychotic use and shorter duration of disease were closely related to employment with symptomatic remission.