Damiano Salazzari

First-contact incidence of psychosis in north-eastern Italy: influence of age, gender, immigration and socioeconomic deprivation

BACKGROUND Considerable variations in the incidence of psychosis have been observed across countries, in terms of age, gender, immigration status, urbanicity and socioeconomic deprivation. AIMS To evaluate the incidence rate of first-episode psychosis in a large area of north-eastern Italy and the distribution of the above-mentioned risk factors in individuals with psychoses. METHOD Epidemiologically based survey. Over a 3-year period individuals with psychosis on first contact with services were identified and diagnosed according to ICD-10 criteria. RESULTS In total, 558 individuals with first-episode psychosis were identified during 3,077,555 person-years at risk. The annual incidence rate per 100,000 was 18.1 for all psychoses, 14.3 for non-affective psychoses and 3.8 for affective psychoses. The rate for all psychoses was higher in young people aged 20-29 (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 4.18, 95% CI 2.77-6.30), immigrants (IRR = 2.26, 95% CI 1.85-2.75) and those living in the most deprived areas (IRR = 2.09, 95% CI 1.54-2.85). CONCLUSIONS The incidence rate in our study area was lower than that found in other European and North American studies and provides new insights into the factors that may increase and/or decrease risk for developing psychosis.

Prediction of community mental health service utilization by individual and ecological level socio-economic factors

Individuals with a more deprived socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to have higher rates of psychiatric morbidity and use of psychiatric services. Such service use is also influenced by socioeconomic factors at the ecological level. The aim of this article is to investigate the influence of these variables on service utilization. All patients in contact with three Italian community psychiatric services (CPS) were included. Community and hospital contacts over 6 months were investigated. Socio-economic characteristics were described using a SES Index and two new Resources Accessibility Indexes. Low SES was found to be associated with more community service contacts. When other individual and ecological variables were controlled for, SES was negatively associated only with the number of home visits, which was about half the rate in deprived areas. An association between service utilization and the resources of the catchment area was also detected. The economic crisis in Europe is increasing inequality of access, so paying attention to SES characteristics at both the individual and the ecological levels is likely to become increasingly important in understanding patterns of psychiatric service utilization and planning care accordingly.

Pre- and post-discharge factors influencing early readmission to acute psychiatric wards: implications for quality-of-care indicators in psychiatry.

OBJECTIVE This study aims to describe the association between pre- and post-discharge factors and early readmission to acute psychiatric wards in a well-integrated community-based psychiatric service. METHODS The analysis consisted of all the hospital discharge records containing a psychiatric diagnosis in 2011 from four Italian acute inpatient wards. Socio-demographic, clinical, admission and aftercare variables were investigated as possible predictors of readmission at 7, 30 and 90 days after discharge and were analyzed, controlling for dependency among same-patient observations. RESULTS Previous psychiatric history was the most important predictor of readmissions. The socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of patients did not clearly influence readmission. Length of stay (LoS) was significant for readmission at 7 days even after controlling for other predictors and for same-patient dependence, in particular, for patients with previous admissions. Results suggest a protective role of a LoS higher than 28 days. In general, having a contact in community services did not turn out as protective from early readmission. CONCLUSIONS This paper contributes to increase the knowledge about factors that may predict the risk of early readmission. Implications for quality assessment in psychiatry emerged: readmission seems actionable by LoS and not by community follow-up.

Standard comparison of local mental health care systems in eight European countries

Aims. There is a need of more quantitative standardised data to compare local Mental Health Systems (MHSs) across international jurisdictions. Problems related to terminological variability and commensurability in the evaluation of services hamper like-with-like comparisons and hinder the development of work in this area. This study was aimed to provide standard assessment and comparison of MHS in selected local areas in Europe, contributing to a better understanding of MHS and related allocation of resources at local level and to lessen the scarcity in standard service comparison in Europe. This study is part of the Seventh Framework programme REFINEMENT (Research on Financing Systems’ Effect on the Quality of Mental Health Care in Europe) project. Methods. A total of eight study areas from European countries with different systems of care (Austria, England, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain) were analysed using a standard open-access classification system (Description and Evaluation of Services for Long Term Care in Europe, DESDE-LTC). All publicly funded services universally accessible to adults (≥18 years) with a psychiatric disorder were coded. Care availability, diversity and capacity were compared across these eight local MHS. Results. The comparison of MHS revealed more community-oriented delivery systems in the areas of England (Hampshire) and Southern European countries (Verona – Italy and Girona – Spain). Community-oriented systems with a higher proportion of hospital care were identified in Austria (Industrieviertel) and Scandinavian countries (Sør-Trøndelag in Norway and Helsinki-Uusimaa in Finland), while Loiret (France) was considered as a predominantly hospital-based system. The MHS in Suceava (Romania) was still in transition to community care. Conclusions. There is a significant variation in care availability and capacity across MHS of local areas in Europe. This information is relevant for understanding the process of implementation of community-oriented mental health care in local areas. Standard comparison of care provision in local areas is important for context analysis and policy planning.

Differences in the use of involuntary admission across the Veneto Region: which role for individual and contextual variables?

AIMS The first aim of this study is to compare involuntary admissions across the Veneto Region in Italy. The second aim is to explore the relation between mental health services provision, characteristics of population, individual factors and involuntary admissions. METHODS For 21 Mental Health Departments (MHDs) in the Veneto Region (Italy), the average population prevalence rate of involuntary admissions between 2000 and 2007 and the percentage of involuntary admissions were calculated. Chi-square tests for equality of proportions were used to test hypotheses. Variables at the individual, contextual and organisational levels were used in multiple regressions, with the involuntary admission data as dependent variables. RESULTS The average prevalence rate of involuntary commitment was 12.75 ranging from 1.96 to 27.59 across MHDs . About 75% of the involuntary admissions referred to psychotic patients, and almost half of patients were aged 25-44. Significant differences among MHDs emerged; higher percentages of involuntary admissions were generally found in densely populated areas. Higher ageing indices and rates of social workers were found as predictors of the prevalence rate. In the multilevel regression, being males and psychotic significantly increased involuntary admissions, while the percentage of singles in population decreased it. CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to define the specific contribution of each factor predicting the use of involuntary admission, even within areas under the same legislation. It shows how the inclusion of both individual and contextual factors may lead to better predictions and provides precious data for the services improvement.

Dealing with multigranular spatio-temporal databases to manage psychiatric epidemiology data

In epidemiology spatio-temporal data may represent surveillance data and origins of diseases. In order to better exploit these data, temporal and spatial dimensions could be managed considering them as meta-data useful to retrieve classical data. In this paper, we propose to use a framework for spatio-temporal granularities with the aim to improve the querying of clinical spatio-temporal data. We show how granularities can be used to enrich a psychiatric case register. We exemplify our approach reporting spatio-temporal queries, based on granularities, useful for epidemiological studies.