ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The Bipolar Disorder Patients Follow-up (BDPF) project is a longitudinal, prospective and naturalistic study. The purpose of the present report is to introduce the project, elaborate its methods, and present the reliability data of the utilized symptoms rating scales. METHODS: The sampling started in May 2008 and is still in progress. The probands are assessed at the beginning of the sampling and then 2 and 6 months later and then every 6 months using several instruments to identify psychiatric comorbidities, symptoms severity, quality of life, attempted suicide rate, treatment compliance, and some other factors. RESULTS: The results could lead to increase the clinicians' awareness about the clinical picture of this disorder in Iranian patients. CONCLUSIONS: The present project could decrease to some extent the current shortcomings in Iran's psychiatric data at least about one of the major psychiatric disorders known as the eighth result which cause medical disability over the world.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Several controlled trials have demonstrated the efficacy and safety of Fluoxetine in children and adolescents with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but there is no controlled study on the effectiveness of Citalopram in this group. This report describes the use of Citalopram in comparison with Fluoxetine in childhood-onset OCD. METHOD: This study is a randomized, double blind, fixed-does (20mg) trial of Fluoxetine versus Citalopram in 29 children and adolescents (17 boys and 12 girls) with OCD, aged 7-18 years (mean 13.8 and SD 3.05). The length of study was 6 weeks. Obsessive-Compulsive symptom severity was measured by Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) and Clinician's Global Impression Scale (CGI). DICA (Diagnostic Interview of Children and Adolescents) was used to diagnose the psychiatric disorders. RESULTS: Each group showed significant improvement over the baseline as measured by the CY-BOCS (p < 0.01) but not by CGI (p = NS). The Comparison between two groups showed no significant differences in efficacy and safety of the drugs. Most common adverse effects were headache for Citalopram and tremor for Fluoxetine. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that Citalopram is as safe and effective as Fluoxetine for children and adolescents with OCD. Further studies are needed to replicate our findings.
