Associations of acoustically measured tongue/jaw movements and portion of time speaking with negative symptom severity in patients with schizophrenia in Italy and the United States.

This is the first cross-language study of the effect of schizophrenia on speech as measured by analyzing phonetic parameters with sound spectrography. We hypothesized that reduced variability in pitch and formants would be correlated with negative symptom severity in two samples of patients with schizophrenia, one from Italy, and one from the United States. Audio recordings of spontaneous speech were available from 40 patients. From each speech sample, a file of F0 (pitch) and formant values (F1 and F2, resonance bands indicating the moment-by-moment shape of the oral cavity), and the portion of the recording in which there was speaking ("fraction voiced," FV), was created. Correlations between variability in the phonetic indices and negative symptom severity were tested and further examined using regression analyses. Meaningful negative correlations between Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) total score and standard deviation (SD) of F2, as well as variability in pitch (SD F0) were observed in the Italian sample. We also found meaningful associations of SANS affective flattening and SANS alogia with SD F0, and of SANS avolition/apathy and SD F2 in the Italian sample. In both samples, FV was meaningfully correlated with SANS total score, avolition/apathy, and anhedonia/asociality.

Comparing a Community Mental Health team in Bedford (UK) with Community Mental Health Services in Perugia (Italy): description of teams and caseloads.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of our work is to evaluate and compare some of the key indicators that characterize one English Community Health team (Bedford), two Italian Mental Health Services, in Bastia and Magione, and one University Hospital Mental Health Service, in Perugia. Our work was conducted on the basis of a collaboration between Cambridge University (UK) and the University of Perugia (Italy). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We analyzed and described the teams supplying information about the number of psychiatrists, types of staff and populations in the catchment areas. Furthermore, we analyzed their caseloads, referring to the epidemiologic features and the diagnostic aspects. We considered the population that were referred to the services in February 2013. RESULTS: There are some differences between the organization of the teams and the caseloads of the Community Mental Health Services in Italy and in England and between the community health services and the hospital service. As for the diagnostic aspects, Mood Disorders seem to be the most frequent diagnosis in each service (Bedford 53.8%, Perugia 48%, Magione 45%, Bastia 38%). CONCLUSIONS: The World Health Organisation identifies strong links between mental health status and development for individuals, communities and countries. In order to improve the mental health of the population, countries need effective and accessible treatment, prevention, and promotion programs. Achieving adequate support for mental health in any country requires a unified and shared approach. Little research has been done to describe the Mental Health Services in the different countries of the world, consequently more studies are needed to assess the improvements in the mental health system in relation to the services available for the population. In our study, according to the literature, we detected that mood disorders are the most frequent cause of referral to mental health services in all the populations studied.