Compulsive Health-Related Internet Use and Cyberchondria.

BACKGROUND: Cyberchondria denotes excessive and repeated online health-related searches associated with an increase in health anxiety. Such searches persist in those with cyberchondria, despite the negative consequences, resembling a pattern of compulsive Internet use. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to assess compulsive health-related Internet use in relation to cyberchondria while controlling for related variables. METHOD: Adult participants (N = 749) were recruited from an online platform. They completed questionnaires assessing the severity of cyberchondria (via the Cyberchondria Severity Scale [CSS]), compulsive Internet use adapted for online health-related seeking (via the adapted Compulsive Internet Use Scale [CIUS]), and levels of intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety, as well as depressive, somatic, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. A logistic regression analysis was carried out to identify predictors of scores above a cutoff value on the CIUS, indicating compulsive health-related Internet use. RESULTS: The regression output showed that only the CSS total score and sex made a unique, statistically significant contribution to the model, leading to the correct classification of 78.6% of the cases. Of the CSS subscales, compulsion and distress were the most strongly associated with compulsive health-related Internet use. CONCLUSIONS: The finding that the adapted CIUS scores are associated with cyberchondria indicates that cyberchondria has a compulsive component, at least in terms of health-related Internet use. It also suggests that compulsive health-related Internet use persists despite the distress associated with this activity. Males may engage in cyberchondria more compulsively than females. These findings have implications for research and clinical practice.

Bipolar spectrum disorder: What evidence for pharmacological treatment? A systematic review.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Bipolar spectrum disorder (BSD) is an extended concept of bipolar disorder (BD) that includes conditions that do not fulfill the criteria. There is no recommendation today about its treatment. We reviewed relevant literature focusing on pharmacological treatments, looking for high-strength evidence leading to guidelines. METHODOLOGY: A literature search was conducted using MedLine / PubMed database and Google Scholar up to September 2018. Search words were related to BSD and pharmacological treatment. RESULTS: The literature search yielded 621 articles. Out of these, 35 articles met our selection criteria. There was limited high quality data. Only one randomized control trial (RCT) and one randomized open label trial were found. Most studies used different definition of BSD. CONCLUSIONS: There is a considerable lack of data and no evidence supporting efficacy of pharmacological treatment for BSD. There is a need for a consensus on the definition of BSD and more evidence studies to evaluate drug's effectiveness in this condition.

Treating psychiatric symptoms and disorders with non-psychotropic medications
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A few drugs prescribed in internal medicine, ie, non-psychotropic drugs, can be used to treat certain neuropsychiatric disorders. For most of these situations, the level of evidence remains low. But when sufficient data becomes available, these molecules are then included in official guidelines for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. In this article we review interesting drugs which may be relevant from an evidence-based medicine point of view, and could become part of psychiatric practice in the future.
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Alternative and complementary approaches in psychiatry: beliefs versus evidence.

While the legitimacy of medical treatments is more and more questioned, one sees a paradoxical increase in nonconventional approaches, notably so in psychiatry. Over time, approaches that were considered valuable by the scientific community were found to be inefficacious, while other approaches, labelled as alternative or complementary, were finally discovered to be useful in a few indications. From this observation, we propose to classify therapies as orthodox (scientifically validated) or heterodox (scientifically not validated). To illustrate these two categories, we discuss the place, the role, the interest, and also the potential risks of nonconventional approaches in the present practice of psychiatry.

Si bien la legitimidad de los tratamientos médicos se cuestiona cada vez más, se observa un aumento paradójico en las aproximaciones no convencionales, especialmente en la psiquiatría. Con el tiempo, se descubrió que las aproximaciones que la comunidad científica consideraba valiosas eran ineficaces, mientras que otros enfoques, etiquetados como alternativos o complementarios, se descubrieron finalmente como útiles en algunas indicaciones. A partir de esta observación, se propone clasificar las terapias como ortodoxas (validadas científicamente) o heterodoxas (no validadas científicamente). Para ilustrar estas dos categorías, se discute el lugar, el papel, el interés y también los riesgos potenciales de las aproximaciones no convencionales en la práctica actual de la psiquiatría.

Tandis que la légitimité des traitements médicaux est de plus en plus mise en question, on constate une augmentation paradoxale des approches non conventionnelles, notamment en psychiatrie. Avec le temps, des approches qui étaient considérées de valeur par la communauté scientifique se sont révélées inefficaces, tandis que d'autres, étiquetées comme alternatives ou complémentaires, ont été décrites comme efficaces dans quelques indications. À partir de cette observation, nous proposons de classer les traitements soit comme orthodoxes (validés scientifiquement) soit comme hétérodoxes (non validés scientifiquement). Pour illustrer ces deux catégories, nous commentons la place, le rôle, l'intérêt et aussi les risques potentiels des approches non conventionnelles dans la pratique actuelle de la psychiatrie.