Severe Mental Illness

The study aims to evaluate the impact of integrating a clinical pharmacist into Flexible Assertive Community (FACT) teams on health-related quality of life and pharmacotherapy for individuals with severe mental illness and substance use disorders. This is a pragmatic effectiveness study using a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial design. Four FACT teams from FACT Innlandet will serve as clusters, transitioning from standard care (control) to intervention in a randomized sequence. The intervention involves integrating a clinical pharmacist into the interdisciplinary FACT teams. Participants will be adults (over 18 years old), receiving treatment from participating FACT teams, diagnosed with severe mental illness or substance use disorder and prescribed at least one psychotropic medication. Exclusion criteria include inability to provide informed consent, planned discharge within the first three months of period 1, or inability to communicate in Norwegian or English. The control group receives standard care provided by FACT teams. The intervention group will have a clinical pharmacist integrated into the FACT team performing medication reconciliation, comprehensive medication reviews, patient counselling, and interdisciplinary discussions to resolve medication-related problems. A sample size of 160 patients is estimated based on an effect size of 0.25, 80% power and alpha=0.05. The primary endpoint is change in patient-reported health related quality of life, measured using the EuroQoL-5 dimensions-5 levels (EQ-5D-5L) and Visual Analog Scale, EQ-VAS scores from baseline to the end of the intervention.

Providing care to individuals with serious mental illness can be challenging, requiring ongoing monitoring, treatment adjustments, and coordination of various medical and social services. Rates of emergency service and hospital use are high due to unexpected social, medical, and mental health crises. Stressors and poor adherence with treatment are common and can lead to rapid worsening in symptoms, job loss, homelessness, incarceration, or suicide. Clinician visits can be infrequent. Patient-clinician contact between visits is challenging and often nonexistent. As such, illness exacerbations usually occur with no clinician awareness in real time, leaving limited opportunity to provide services. Clinicians need interventions that are capable of monitoring and quickly detecting worsening behaviors and illness, to improve care coordination, outreach, and treatment. This project studies the effectiveness of enhanced care coordination using passive mobile data monitoring and support from peer specialists, with the goal of improving outcomes and reducing the need for acute care.

This randomized, rater-blind, multicenter clinical trial will evaluate whether a personalized pharmaco-lifestyle intervention improves mental functioning in adults with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder. Participants will be randomized to either a modular individualized intervention program or a structured psychoeducation control condition. The individualized intervention may include physical exercise, an anti-inflammatory diet, sleep intervention, social prescribing, semaglutide for eligible participants with overweight or obesity, and optional closed-loop transcranial alternating current stimulation for participants with prominent depressive symptoms. The primary outcome is change in the SF-36 Mental Component Summary score from baseline to Month 3.

People with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, often experience significant difficulties in daily functioning, physical health, and quality of life. Long-acting injectable antipsychotics are an important part of treatment, but they can be associated with metabolic side effects and reduced physical fitness. Physical exercise has shown potential benefits for mental and physical health in this population; however, structured exercise programs implemented in real-world psychiatric services are still limited. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and clinical impact of a structured, multimodal physical exercise program for adults with psychosis who are receiving long-acting injectable antipsychotic treatment. The study aims to determine whether participation in a supervised exercise program can improve physical functioning, psychological well-being, and selected biological markers related to brain health and metabolism. This study will be conducted in an outpatient psychiatric setting in Portugal and will include adults diagnosed with psychosis who are currently treated with long-acting injectable antipsychotics. Participants will be allocated to either an exercise group or a control group receiving usual care. The exercise program will last 24 weeks and will include aerobic, strength, mobility, and flexibility exercises, with supervised sessions conducted by qualified professionals. Participants will be assessed at baseline, during the intervention, after completion of the program, and at follow-up. Assessments will include measures of physical function, body composition, psychological well-being, quality of life, and blood-based biomarkers such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, dopamine, serotonin, and metabolic indicators. The main hypothesis of this study is that individuals who participate in the physical exercise program will show improvements in physical function, mood, and overall well-being compared with those receiving usual care alone. The results of this study are expected to provide practical evidence to support the integration of structured physical exercise as an adjunct to routine psychiatric care for people with psychosis.

This project aims to evaluate feasibility, validity and clinically applicability to systematically measure fitness in patients with severe mental illness. The research project is a validation study using a cross-sectional design. The project will include 50 people with severe mental illness and 25 healthy controls without present or previous mental illness. The protocol includes a baseline visit where three different ways of measure fitness will be carried out, and a 14-day period of physical activity monitoring.

This study evaluates a group-based intervention designed to improve romantic and social relationship skills in adults living with a severe mental illness (SMI), such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder. Many adults with SMI experience loneliness, social isolation, and difficulties forming romantic relationships, even though most express a strong desire for intimacy. These challenges may be related to social skill difficulties, stigma, low self-esteem, and limited opportunities to develop healthy relationships. The "À deux, c'est mieux" (Better Together) program is a structured 12-session group intervention focused on developing communication skills, emotional regulation, social understanding, and healthy romantic relationship behaviors. Sessions are led by trained mental health professionals and take place in small groups. Participants will complete assessments before starting the program, at the end of the 12 sessions, and three months later. The study will examine changes in romantic relationship skills, quality of life, loneliness, self-esteem, self-stigma, and recovery. The purpose of this study is to determine whether this intervention improves romantic and social functioning and overall well-being, and whether it is acceptable and relevant for adults living with severe mental illness.

The project focuses on patients with severe mental disorders (SMD) residing in Italian mental health supported accommodation (SA). Although the goal of SA is to promote personal recovery - that is, living life to the fullest of one's potential - international literature on this topic is scarce, and traditional treatments in the Italian residential system show limitations in adopting such approaches. The research hypothesis is that activating personal recovery pathways could improve the biopsychosocial outcomes of patients, caregivers, and professionals. To test this hypothesis, a non-pharmacological, non-randomized interventional trial will compare two groups: one group of individuals with SMD receiving recovery-oriented treatment, using the Mental Health Recovery Star, and another group of individuals with SMD receiving standard treatment. The Mental Health Recovery Star is a ten-pointed star-shaped tool that represents various life dimensions. Patients, together with their key professional, are expected to negotiate a score for each domain on the five-stage 'Scale of Change,' capturing and monitoring the different phases of the recovery process.

Norwegian patients with severe mental illnesses (SMI), such as schizophrenia spectrum or bipolar disorder, lose on average 10 years of life compared to mentally healthy individuals. Much of this gap is due to heart disease. Unhealthy lifestyle habits, including poor diet and physical inactivity, contribute to higher levels of metabolic risk factors for heart disease in this population. The goal of this clinical trial is to find out if a lifestyle program including dietary counselling and regular physical exercise can help people with SMI to improve their physical and mental health. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does adherence to a healthy lifestyle program lead to reduced estimated risk of heart disease? * Does it change lifestyle habits, body weight and composition, and metabolic risk markers over six months? * Can participants with severe mental illness complete a healthy lifestyle program, and do they find it acceptable? Researchers will compare two groups: one that receives the lifestyle program in addition to regular mental health care, and one that receives regular care only. During the six month program, participants in the lifestyle group will: * Meet with a clinical dietitian once a month for dietary counselling * Take part in group-based physical activity sessions once a month, and receive support to follow a personal training plan Around 70 adults will take part in the study. The results may help improve the way lifestyle support is offered to people living with severe mental illness and inform health care providers about strategies to improve physical health in this vulnerable group.

The effects of psychological treatment, mentalization-based therapy, will be studied among persons with mental disorders seeking help from mental health care services.

Introduction: Oxytocin (OT) is a nine-amino acid neuropeptide, known to have a fundamental role in social communication. In a recent randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study carried out in Shalvata Mental Health Center, OT was administrated to patients suffering from severe mental health illness. The results indicated that OT has a clear beneficial effect on therapeutic outcomes. However, to our knowledge, the effect of OT administration to both patients and therapists on the therapeutic process was never tested. Substance administration to caregivers is therefore possible, and could, in some cases, provide further knowledge about the caregiving dynamics. Since we know the therapist's characteristics effect the therapeutic alliance and that OT is associated with the therapeutic alliance, patient-therapist bond, and therapy outcome, we are led to ask if OT administration to patients and therapists could allow for a deeper understanding of OT's effects on the therapeutic process. Another variable found to be associated with the therapeutic process is Physiological Synchronization. Physiological Synchronization (PS) is a primarily interpersonal phenomenon which includes coordination of physiological signals between two or more interacting individuals. Despite the rising number of studies examining PS, its physiological and psychological mechanisms are yet to be fully understood. Based on literature indicating associations between OT and PS, and associations each of them has with the therapeutic process and its facilitators, in this study we wish to examine the influence of OT on PS through intranasal OT administration to patients alone and to patients and therapists together. Research Hypotheses: 1. Patients receiving OT will demonstrate higher levels of PS during the measured session compared to patients receiving placebo. 2. Patients receiving OT will report higher levels of perceived therapist empathy as compared to patients receiving placebo. 3. These associations will be stronger when both patient and therapist receive OT in comparison to patient alone. 4. Changed in PS and empathy will be associated with OT even after controlling for patient rated alliance and session impact. 5. These findings will sustain after controlling for severity of symptoms and attachment patterns. Method: Participants. Sixty patients and their therapists will be recruited for the pilot study. Patients will be recruited from the inpatient adult psychiatric wards at Shalvata Mental Health Center. Therapists in this study will be comprised of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, in different stages of seniority and training. Instruments. Attachment patterns, symptom severity, side effects and therapeutic process measurements - working alliance, perceived empathy and session impact - will be assessed using self-report questionnaires. PS will be measured by recordings of the electrodermal activity (EDA) measured by skin conductance signals, using a galvanic skin response (GSR) device. Oxytocin Administration will be performed intranasally using a spray containing 24U. Procedure. Sixty patients meeting inclusion criteria and their therapists will be recruited for the pilot study. Dyads will be randomized and double-blindly allocated to receive intra-nasal oxytocin or placebo. Dyads will be followed for two consecutive sessions, approximately at their fourth and fifth sessions. After signing informed consent forms, patients and therapists will complete therapeutic process measurements, and patients will be assessed for the severity of their symptoms and attachment patterns. Prior to the first session, patients will be administrated with either IN-OT or PLC and will wait for 30 minutes before the beginning of the session. Skin conductance synchrony will be measured during the session. At the end of the session, therapeutic process measurements will be assessed in both patients and therapists, and patients will complete a side-effect questionnaire. Prior to the second session, both patients and therapists will receive either IN-OT or PLC (each dyad will receive the same substance) and will wait for 30 minutes before the beginning of the session. Skin conductance synchrony will then be measured during the session. At the end of the session, therapeutic process measurements will be assessed in both patients and therapists alongside with a side-effect questionnaire. The uniqueness of the proposed study is rooted in the view of the psychotherapy dyad as undetached, by focusing on the dyad and not on the patient alone. Focusing on patient-therapist synchronization lies on the understanding of the patient-therapist bond as co-dependent and co-affected. Such research could increase our understanding of PS between patient and therapist and its meaning in psychotherapy research and practice.