Alain Brunet

McGill University | McGill · Department of Psychiatry

there needs to be a consensus regarding the definition of body image in oncology the literature. this lack of agreement leads to conflicting results in psychosocial interventions aimed to improve body image among breast cancer patients. through an instrumentalist approach, this systematic review aims to analyze how body image as a concept is descri...

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers self-report high levels of mental health disorder symptoms, such as alcohol use disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Participation in regular mental health monitoring has been associated with improved mental health symptom...

Background Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers experience an elevated risk for mental health disorders due to inherent work-related exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events and occupational stressors. RCMP officers also report high levels of stigma and low levels of intentions to seek mental health services. In contrast,...

Objective: Serving Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have screened positive for one or more mental disorders based on self-reported symptoms with substantial prevalence (i.e., 50.2%). Mental health challenges for military and paramilitary populations have historically been attributed to insufficient recruit screening; however, cadet mental heal...

La recherche de ressources en santé mentale en ligne est devenue une pratique courante chez les personnes ayant vécu un stress traumatique. Cependant, on sait peu de choses sur la qualité des informations disponibles en ligne. Cela peut avoir des implications importantes du point de vue de la diffusion des connaissances et du traitement. Cette anal...

Objective: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report extremely frequent and varied exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs). While occupational exposures to PPTEs may be one explanation for the symptoms of mental disorders prevalent among serving RCMP, exposures occurring prior to service may also play a role. The object...

Background: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report diverse occupational stressors and repeated exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events, which may increase the odds of screening positive for a mental disorder, and increase the risk of death by suicide. The current study was designed to provide prevalence information regarding...

Background: Public safety personnel (PSP; e.g., border services personnel, correctional workers, firefighters, paramedics, police, public safety communicators) are frequently exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events. Such events contribute to substantial and growing challenges from posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSIs), including bu...

Epigenetic research in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is essential, given that environmental stressors and fear play such a crucial role in its development. As such, it may provide a framework for understanding individual differences in the prevalence of the disorder and in treatment response. This paper reviews the epigenetic markers associ...

ABSTRACT Background: Although symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been associated with the COVID-19 pandemic experiences, no study has explored yet the association of specific COVID-19 narratives with peritraumatic distress, the precursor of PTSD. Objective: To explore the worst experiences associated with peritraumatic distress...

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), like all public safety personnel (PSP), are frequently exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events that contribute to posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSI). Addressing PTSI is impeded by the limited available research. In this protocol paper, we describe the RCMP Study, part of the concerted effo...

Les membres de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada (GRC), comme l’ensemble du personnel de la sécurité publique, sont fréquemment exposés à des événements potentiellement traumatiques sur le plan psychologique qui contribuent à la survenue de blessures de stress post­traumatique. Le peu de travaux de recherche disponibles sur le sujet limite l’étude de...

Objectives In a sustained relationship, romantic betrayal is a catastrophic event that can precipitate an adjustment disorder (AD). Surprisingly, there exists no empirically validated treatment for AD, despite its high prevalence in clinical practice. Considering the promise of memory reactivation under propranolol (i.e., reconsolidation interferen...

The Peritraumatic Distress Inventory (PDI) is a well‐known self‐report questionnaire indexing the distress experienced during and shortly after a most stressful or traumatic event. Although sociodemographic factors contributing to peritraumatic distress have been previously investigated, no research has examined the nature and severity of peritraum...

Background: Throughout the pandemic, the general population was encouraged to use media to be kept informed about sanitary measures while staying connected with others to obtain social support. However, due to mixed findings in the literature, it is not clear whether media use in such a context would be pathogenic or salutogenic. Objective: Therefo...

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been hailed by some as the emblematic mental disorder of the COVID‐19 pandemic, assuming that PTSD’s life‐threat criterion was met de facto. More plausible outcomes like adjustment disorder (AD) have been overlooked. Methods: An online cross‐sectional survey was launched in the initial stage of t...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic led to the prioritization of breast cancer services towards patients who are currently in treatment or diagnosed with advanced stages of breast cancer, and the self-assessment of both tumor growth and treatment side effects. Alongside the stress associated with cancer itself, delays and complications due to COVID-19...

Study objectives: Post-traumatic nightmares may exacerbate and perpetuate the daytime symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and might represent a therapeutic target. The therapeutic strategy of memory reconsolidation using the β-adrenergic receptor blocker propranolol associated with re-exposure psychotherapy is a promising treatment i...

Background: Reconsolidation impairment using propranolol is a novel intervention for mental disorders with an emotional memory at their core. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we examined the evidence for this intervention in healthy and clinical adult samples. Methods: We searched 8 databases for randomized, double-blind studies that...

The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) is a structured interview that assesses the frequency and severity of each symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in relation to a single traumatic stressor over a 1-month period, allowing the trained interviewer to infer a current or lifetime diagnosis congruent with the 5th Edition...

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only resulted in millions of deaths but, together with the strategies imposed to contain the spread of the disease, it has had significant psychological and social effects. This paper considers these effects in residents of the USA, the country that has reported the highest number of deaths from COVID-19. Between April...

We read with interest the article by Chen and colleagues [1] which aimed to examine changes in depression and anxiety among Chinese adolescents during and after the initial COVID-19 outbreak. These authors found that the prevalence of anxiety and depression significantly increased in Chinese adolescents after the initial outbreak. We commend the au...

Objective: Numerous professions are considered at risk of developing work-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as per DSM-5. This study sought to identify the prevalence of PTSD among lawyers and its associated work and non-work-related risk and moderating factors. Method: A cross-national sample of Canadian lawyers (N = 169) completed...

Background: Neuropsychological alterations co-occur with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); yet, the nature and magnitude of such alterations in police officers remains unknown despite their high level of trauma exposure. Objective: The current research sought to examine (1) cognitive functioning among police officers with and without PTSD; (...

Recently, this journal published an article by Sariaslan, Leucht, Zetterqvist, Lichtenstein, and Fazel (2021), which describes a cohort of individuals prescribed antipsychotics in Sweden between 2005 and 2013. The authors provide a methodologically rigorous study with a large sample (n = 74 925) from several national databases that control for time...

Background Traumatic stress is a global mental health problem requiring novel, easily implemented treatment solutions. We compared the effectiveness and efficiency of Reconsolidation Therapy (RT) to the well-established antidepressant paroxetine, in reducing symptoms of traumatic stress among patients from Nepal, a low-income country. Methods Fort...

Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis can be a turning point with negative impacts on mental health, treatment and prognosis. This meta-analysis sought to determine the nature and prevalence of clinically significant psychological distress-related symptoms in the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis. Ten databases were searched between March and August...

BACKGROUND While exposure to COVID-related stressors, level of peritraumatic distress, and frequency of media use for seeking COVID-related information can increase the risk for trauma- and stressor-related (TSR) symptoms during the pandemic, frequency of social media use for support and connection may buffer these effects. OBJECTIVE We examined t...

One of the ‘hot’ topics related to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from the global crisis. However, to be diagnosed with PTSD, one must be exposed to an event involving life-threat, which does not necessarily capture the substantial variability in the types of stressors and subseque...

The paper “Delayed sleep timing and circadian rhythms in pregnancy and transdiagnostic symptoms associated with postpartum depression” by Obeysekare et al.1 was both scholarly and interesting. The authors report that delayed sleep timing of pregnant women is associated with psychiatric symptoms, such as depression, obsessive- compulsive disorder, a...

Background Expressive writing requires journaling stressor-related thoughts and feelings over four daily sessions of 15 min. Thirty years of research have popularized expressive writing as a brief intervention for fostering trauma-related resilience; however, its ability to surpass placebo remains unclear. This study aimed to determine the efficacy...

Background: There is a dearth of therapeutic solutions for traumatized young patients. Trauma reactivation conducted under the influence of the reconsolidation blocker propranolol (Reconsolidation Therapy) is a simple, cost-effective treatment option that has some promising initial results in adults suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTS...

Several studies have reported the factor structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results show models with different number of factors, high correlations between factors, and symptoms that belong to different factors in different models without affecting the fit index. These elements could supp...

This paper presents the first systematic case-control study of correlates of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) in an adolescent school population. MPI is generally construed as a dissociative phenomenon spread by social contagion to individuals who are prone to dissociation. We sought to test if the correlates of dissociative experiences most commonly...

Lawyers can be exposed to cases involving traumatic elements of crimes. Such exposure may result in symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have adverse effects on the lawyers’ capacities to work. A scoping review was conducted to summarize original investigations of work-related PTSD among lawyers in terms of (a) trauma exposure conce...

We write to comment on “Maternal mood symptoms in pregnancy and postpartum depression: association with exclusive breastfeeding in a population-based birth cohort”. This study evaluated the associations between maternal mood symptoms during pregnancy and exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months postpartum, and between exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months...

Cookey et. al.’s paper1 highlights the complex presentations of patients seen in early first-episode psychosis clinics with comorbid substance abuse. Previous studies, as the article suggests, tended to focus on cannabis use only or primarily on treatment outcomes. By approaching these patients from a broader perspective, the authors offer insight...

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has devastating psychological consequences for many, which can include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Previous studies reported a high prevalence of PTSD due to the pandemic but failed to consider the life-threat criterion, which may have led to inaccurate prevalence estimates. This study addressed this gap...

We would like to commend McGowan and colleagues for their study addressing shared core symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Bipolar Disorder (BD) (1). These researchers established significant correlations between dysregulated circadian rest‐activity variables (including low interdaily stability and weak amplitude) and symptoms of...

We have read with great interest the article by Trotti et al. (2020) commendably pursuing the neural basis of emotional scene processing in bipolar disorder (BD) with and without psychosis (BDP, BDNP) using early posterior negativity (EPN) and late posterior potential (LPP) as biomarkers of temporal dynamics. This is the first study of its kind tha...

Background There is unreliable, and negligible information on the mental health and trauma-exposure of asylum-seekers and displaced refugees in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Objectives To evaluate how responsible the ethno-religious origins are, for the prevalence of trauma exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in displaced Iraqi asylum...

According to a growing body of research, betrayal by a romantic partner is increasingly considered as a form of interpersonal trauma. Between 30% and 60% of betrayed individuals experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety to clinically meaningful levels. From a clinical perspective, this constellation of sym...

Goal: Our aim is to better understand symptoms of stress that may arise as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis. We want to assess those symptoms globally as to see how it affects people in different countries. Such an investigation will allow us to better understand the nature of psychological distress following a pandemic and what intervention st...

Background Prenatal stress has been associated with adverse outcomes in offspring, including elevated risk of psychopathology. Fetal programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been posited as a biological mechanism underlying such consequences. The present study aimed to examine whether dysregulation of the offspring HPA axis...

Introduction This study investigated how coping strategies moderated the impact of disaster-related objective hardship on subjective distress in pregnant women. Methods The objective hardship (exposure severity), subjective distress (Peritraumatic Distress Inventory, Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire and Impact of Event Scale-Re...

We applied semi-structured and in-depth interviews to explore the perceptions and experiences of 60 practitioners/policymakers and 25 Syrian participants involved in mental health services for refugees in Lebanon. Refugees were found to view their distress as a normal shared reaction to adversity while professionals perceived it as symptomatic of m...

Background: The Paris and Nice terrorist attacks affected a thousand of trauma victims and first-line responders. Because there were concerns that this might represent the first of several attacks, there was a need to quickly enhance the local capacities to treat a large number of individuals suffering from trauma-related disorders. Since Reconsol...

The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) is a structured diagnostic interview that assesses the frequency and severity of PTSD symptoms in the previous month, allowing clinicians to infer a diagnosis (Blake et al., 1995). Recently, the CAPS-5 has been released to correspond with the new PTSD diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5 (Weathers et al., 20...

In recent years, many adolescents in Nepal have been affected by episodes of mass psychogenic illness, which seem to involve dissociative symptoms. To identify the potential contributors to dissociation, the present study examined correlates of dissociative experiences among adolescents in Nepal. In a cross-sectional survey, 314 adolescents were as...

Romantic betrayal may precipitate an adjustment disorder in some individuals, an event-related psychological disturbance that is characterized by anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder-like symptoms of intrusions, avoidance, increased vigilance, and failure-to-adapt. Although prior qualitative work suggests that romantic partner bet...

Limited research has been conducted on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5; 2013) exposure criterion: “work-related exposure to aversive details of traumatic events”. This study investigated the presence and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology among a national cross-sectional sample of pra...

Since the advent of the concept of memory reconsolidation, animal and pre-clinical studies on humans using this paradigm have proliferated. However, clinical translation of this knowledge remains scant. Through a carefully designed study involving patients undergoing endoscopy, Galarza Vallejo et al. (2019) show that intravenous administration of a...

The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism of the serotonin transporter has been shown to play a role in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, disaster-related prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) has also been shown to be associated with ASD. However, no study to date has examined whether these two factors, either individually or in combination, are predictive of...

Substantial media attention has focused on suicide among Canadian Public Safety Personnel (PSP; e.g., correctional workers, dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics, police). The attention has raised significant concerns about the mental health impact of public safety service, as well as interest in the correlates for risk of suicide. There have only...

Objective: The authors assessed the efficacy of trauma memory reactivation performed under the influence of propranolol, a noradrenergic beta-receptor blocker, as a putative reconsolidation blocker, in reducing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Method: This was a 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial...

Background: Canadian public safety personnel (PSP; e.g., correctional workers, dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics, police officers) are exposed to potentially traumatic events as a function of their work. Such exposures contribute to the risk of developing clinically significant symptoms related to mental disorders. The current study was design...