Luigi De Benedictis

Université de Montréal | UdeM · Department of Psychiatry

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a frequent comorbidity in first-episode psychosis (FEP) and may increase cognitive impairments. Cognitive remediation (CR) is an effective treatment for cognition, particularly in a group format. This study aims to assess the efficacy, acceptability and engagement of group CR on cognitive outcomes in FEP+SAD compare...

Objectifs L’accès à un logement stable, abordable et sécuritaire constitue un déterminant important de la santé et de l’intégration dans la communauté des personnes ayant un trouble mental. Les études sur la satisfaction, la stabilité et les préférences résidentielles des personnes ayant un trouble mental ont surtout porté sur les expériences de ce...

Aim People living with mental illness are more likely than the general population to experience adverse housing outcomes, including homelessness. The aim of the current study is to examine residential status when participants have their first contact with mental health services, and the correlates of residential status at that moment. Methods Firs...

Aim: Dropping out of psychological interventions is estimated to occur in up to a third of individuals with psychosis. Given the high degree of attrition in this population, identifying predictors of attrition is important to develop strategies to retain individuals in treatment. We observed a particularly high degree of attrition (48%) in a recen...

Aims: High rates of mental illness among individuals experiencing homelessness, as well as documented contacts with psychiatric services prior to episodes of homelessness, indicate that early intervention could play a key role in homelessness prevention. Decision-makers and clinical teams need longitudinal data on housing trajectories following in...

PurposeTo describe long term clinical and functional outcomes of schizophrenia in a developed country.Method Long term longitudinal study of clinical and functional outcomes of incidence cohort of all consecutive admissions for a first hospitalization for schizophrenia between 1983 and 1987 in Montreal, Canada (n = 142). Data collection was conduct...

Several research contributions have depicted the impact of the pandemic environment on healthcare and social care personnel. Even though the high prevalence of burnout depression and anxiety in healthcare settings before COVID-19 has been well documented in the research, the recent increase in psychological distress and mental health issues in heal...

Background Social anxiety (SA), a prevalent comorbid condition in psychotic disorders with a negative impact on functioning, requires adequate intervention relatively early. Using a randomized controlled trial, we tested the efficacy of a group cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention for SA (CBT-SA) that we developed for youth who experienced the...

Objectifs Cette revue trouve sa motivation dans l’observation que la prise de décision clinique en santé mentale est limitée par la nature des mesures typiquement obtenues lors de l’entretien clinique et la difficulté des cliniciens à produire des prédictions justes sur les états mentaux futurs des patients. L’objectif est de présenter un survol re...

Objectives This review is motivated by the observation that clinical decision-making in mental health is limited by the nature of the measures obtained in conventional clinical interviews and the difficulty for clinicians to make accurate predictions about their patients' future mental states. Our objective is to offer a representative overview of...

Background The high rates of suicidal behaviours (SBs) in psychiatric populations remain an important preoccupation to address. The literature reveals emotional instability as an important risk factor for SBs. However, the neural mechanisms underpinning this risk factor have never been investigated in schizophrenia patients with SBs. The following...

Lombardy was the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy, and in March 2020 the rapid escalation in cases prompted the Italian Government to decree a mandatory lockdown and to introduce safety practices in mental health services. The general objective of the study is to evaluate the early impact of the Covid-19 emergency and quarantine on the w...

BACKGROUND In times of pandemics, social distancing, isolation and quarantine have precipitated depression, anxiety and substance misuse. Scientific literature suggests that patients living with mental health problems or illnesses (MHPIs) who interact with Peer Support Workers (PSWs) will not only feel the empathy and connectedness that comes from...

Objective: The attitudes of mental health professionals towards consumers' recovery are far more pessimistic than what is needed for the recovery-orientation to truly permeate systems of care. It has become pressing to depict determinants for these attitudes and how they evolve during professionalization. This, in the hopes to adjust not only medi...

A small number of severely and persistently mentally ill in-patients awaiting residential or long-stay facilities represent an obstacle to the efficient utilization of acute care beds. These facilities are costly and currently reputed to be contrary to recovery principles. In 2013, all acute psychiatric care wards in Montreal identified 194 in-pati...

Aims No instrument has been developed to explicitly assess the professional culture of mental health workers interacting with severely mentally ill people in publicly or privately run mental health care services. Because of theoretical and methodological concerns, we designed a self-administered questionnaire to assess the professional culture of m...

According to Bloor and Dawson (1994), members of a particular professional group, such as psychiatrists, nurses or social workers share a common “professional culture”, i.e. a system of values, schema and knowledge, that orients cognitive appraisal, professional behavior and coping to unforeseen and changing situations. Currently, there are no stud...

Partial complex epilepsy with psychosensorial and psychotic symptoms remains a relatively rare condition that can sometimes be mistaken for an axis I psychiatric disorder. There is no specific treatment for this particular type of epilepsy, anti-epileptic medication being the cornerstone of therapeutic intervention with the occasional addition of n...

Objective: Alcohol and (or) illicit drug use (AIDU) problems are associated with mental health difficulties, but low-to-moderate alcohol consumption may have mental health benefits, compared with abstinence. Our study aimed to explore the hypothesis of a nonlinear, or J-curve, relation between AIDU profiles and psychological distress, psychiatric...

Although clozapine is the only antipsychotic agent to have demonstrated superior efficacy in treatment-refractory schizophrenia, one- to two-thirds of patients do not respond adequately despite acceptable dosages and plasma levels. Moreover, a significant number of patients stop the therapy for various reasons, including its side effects, many of w...

Accessible summary Staff attitudes to violence by psychiatric patients may have an impact on the therapeutic relationship. The French versions of the Perception of Aggression Scale and of a new Modified version of the Overt Aggression Scale are two useful tools for evaluating the subjective experience of and attitudes towards inpatient violence. Fu...

We know little about effective treatment for patients suffering from partial or complete Klüver-Bucy Syndrome (KBS) and other disruptive behaviors following a stroke. Reported cases have shown that certain medication, given alone or combined, can be partially effective. In this specific case study, we will try to demonstrate the effectiveness of a...

Several factors have been shown to be involved in decisions to use seclusion and restraint in psychiatric inpatient settings. This study examined whether staff perceptions of factors related to the care team and violence on the ward predicted use of seclusion and restraint in psychiatric wards. A total of 309 staff members (nurses, rehabilitation i...