2015

The aim of this study was to explore relatives' experiences when their family member is under an outpatient commitment order.

Sammendrag: Gjennom systematisk tekstkondensering av data fremkommet gjennom intervjuer og fokusgruppe med åtte pårørende som hadde mistet et familiemedlem i overdose, beskriver denne studien erfaringer knyttet til slike dødsfall. Hovedfunnet er at erfaringene kan beskrives som at alt verker og alt har satt seg fast. Dette handler om både langvarige og akutte følelsesmessige og eksistensielle belastninger. Det handler også om kulturelle og strukturelle forhold som stigma, forholdet til hjelpeapparatet og mangel på uoppfordret støtte og hjelp.

In recent decades, outpatient commitment orders have been increasingly used in the follow-up of persons with serious mental disorders. Most studies on outpatient commitment orders have focused on compliance and consumption of health care services; there is little research on the content of outpatient commitment orders from a patient perspective.

Background: Injecting drug users have a mortality risk between 10 and 20 times higher than the general population, and the persistent high mortality rate in most Western countries, and especially in Norway, is a major public health concern. Naturalistic, prospective studies following drug abusers over many years are needed in order to investigate the most important predictors of mortality and for planning strategic preventive measures. 

Although many studies have addressed adverse outcomes in children of parents with alcohol abuse/dependence, less is known about the possible long-term effects of more normative patterns of parental alcohol consumption, including drinking at lower risk levels and heavy episodic or binge drinking.

Amfetamin og metamfetamin er, etter cannabis, de mest brukte illegale rusmidlene. Stoffene kan gi økt våkenhet, energi og eufori, men de har også uønskede effekter som angst, aggresjon og paranoia. Blant de mest alvorlige problemene er psykose. I de senere år er det kommet ny kunnskap som i noen grad endrer vår oppfatning av sammenhengen mellom bruk av disse stoffene og utvikling av psykose.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: We investigated transition from amphetamine-induced psychosis (AIP) to schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: As much as 10-15% of new mothers experience depression postpartum. An Internet-based intervention (Mamma Mia) was developed with the primary aims of preventing depressive symptoms and enhancing subjective well-being among pregnant and postpartum women. A secondary aim of Mamma Mia was to ease the transition of becoming a mother by providing knowledge, techniques, and support during pregnancy and after birth.

Seasonal variation in the number of suicides has long been acknowledged. It has been suggested that this seasonality has declined in recent years, but studies have generally used statistical methods incapable of confirming this.

Objective: Level of functioning is positively associated with subjective quality of life for people with severe mental illness, but a detailed relationship between functioning and satisfaction with various life domains is largely unknown, and this gap prompted this study.

It is still under debate whether the reported effects of opioid maintenance therapy (OMT) on child behaviour are a direct effect of prenatal exposure, or whether other factors are involved.

Bakgrunn: Mange pasienter blir langtidsbrukere av benzodiazepiner. Dosen de starter med videreføres ofte over lang tid. Denne undersøkelsen forsøkte å finne faktorer relatert til dosen legen skriver ut ved oppstart. Spesielt undersøkte vi om eldre leger forskrev mer enn yngre.

Cannabis kan gi nedsatt helse og økt risiko for sykdom. Men det er også godt dokumentert at stoffet har effekt ved en rekke sykdommer. Det er imidlertid tvilsomt om medisinsk bruk av cannabis er et argument for eller imot legalisering.

Objectives: To present the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a national cohort of patients seeking treatment for drug use disorders (DUD).

Abstract There are currently over 7000 patients enrolled in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) programs in Norway. A rise in methadone-related deaths proportional to increasing methadone sales over the period 2000-2006 has been observed, but the causative factors for these fatalities have been elusive. In the present study, individual characteristics, methadone concentrations and additional toxicological findings were analyzed.

BACKGROUND: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies show reduced cortical thickness in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These subtle brain abnormalities may provide insight into illness mechanisms. However, environmental and lifestyle-related factors, such as cigarette smoking, may contribute to brain structure changes. Cigarette smoking is highly prevalent in patients with severe mental illness. In nonpsychiatric samples, smoking has been associated with reduced thickness in the anterior (ACC) and posterior cingulate cortices, the insular cortex (INS), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex.

This qualitative case study explored one client's recovery from borderline personality disorder, trauma, and problem gambling.

BACKGROUND: Although persons with chronic pain are frequent users of the health care system, they report poor satisfaction with health care services. Participants with persistent opioid use in Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT)3 report severe pain in spite of treatment. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that subjects with persistent opioid use have both a higher consumption of health care services and a poorer satisfaction than the remaining subjects reporting chronic pain.

EDLE RAVNDAL & GRETHE LAURITZEN

mHealth interventions that deliver content via mobile phones represent a burgeoning area of health behavior change.

Background: Gastric bypass surgery seems to have an effect on glucose metabolism beyond what is mediated through weight reduction. The magnitude of this effect on fasting and post-challenge glucose levels remains unknown.

BACKGROUND: Quality of life (QoL) is a well-established outcome within clinical practice. Despite the adverse effects of substance use disorders on a wide range of patients' functionality and the multidimensional composition of QoL, the treatment field does not yet systematically assess QoL among patients. Exercise has established positive effects on the QoL of healthy and numerous clinical populations. The potential to integrate exercise within treatment, in order to improve QoL has not been satisfactorily explored.

This article considers the potential in using nationwide registers to study harm to others from substance use and abuse.

OBJECTIVE: Antipsychotic agents have serious metabolic adverse effects, among them dyslipidemia, which may necessitate secondary prophylaxis with cholesterol-lowering drugs. Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), particularly clozapine and olanzapine, are known to confer a higher risk of metabolic adverse effects than first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs). However, little is known regarding the real-life number of antipsychotic-treated patients receiving statins.

Background: Since 2009, 14 assertive community treatment (ACT) teams have started up in Norway. Over 30 % of the patients treated by the ACT teams were subject to community treatment orders (CTOs) at intake. CTOs are legal mechanisms to secure treatment adherence for patients with severe mental illness. Little is known about patients’ views and experiences of CTOs within an ACT context.

BAKGRUNN: Målsettingen med studien var å undersøke forekomsten av risikofylt alkoholforbruk hos pasienter innlagt ved medisinske avdelinger og avdekke mulige forskjeller i hvordan røykevaner og alkoholbruk kartlegges og følges opp av helsepersonell.

Hensikt: Å studere kjønnsforskjeller i bruk av vanedannende legemidler i Norge og endringer over tid.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine long-term risk factors for substance-induced and primary psychosis after release from prison.

Aims: Up to 67% of alcohol-dependent patients in treatment have alexithymia, a personality trait associated with emotion regulation difficulties.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the association between prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and motor development in children considering the effect of maternal symptoms of anxiety and depression before, during and after pregnancy.

The aims were, for the entire Norwegian population aged 4-17 years, to study the prevalence of melatonin use during 2004-2012, recurrent use in incident users and psychiatric and neurological morbidity in recurrent users.

Understanding how a self-help program with a positive psychology focus and professional leaders influences change is important to guide support programs.

Introduction: Individuals with substance use disorders can receive important abstinence-specific support in 12-step groups (TSGs). However, our understanding of key factors that influence TSG participation remains limited. This study used an extended version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to enhance the understanding of TSG affiliation.

We explored the association between preeclampsia and later use of antihypertensive drugs in a population-based study with data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway and the Norwegian Prescription Database.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to examine if there was an association between use of anxiolytics and hypnotics in pregnancy and language competence in the offspring at age 3 years.

BACKGROUND: There are concerns about potential increasing use of over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics. The aims of this study were to examine 1) the prevalence of self-reported use of OTC analgesics; 2) the prevalence of combining prescription analgesics drugs with OTC analgesics and 3) whether lifestyle factors such as physical activity were associated with prevalence of daily OTC analgesic use.

Background: Quality of life (QoL) is increasingly recognized as central to the broad construct of recovery in patients with substance use disorders (SUD). However, few longitudinal studies have evaluated changes in QoL after SUD treatment and included patients with SUD that were compulsorily hospitalized. This study aimed to describe QoL among in-patients admitted either voluntarily or compulsorily to hospitalization and to examine patterns and predictors of QoL at admission and at 6 months post treatment.

BACKGROUND: There is a concern about methamphetamine use in Europe. Methamphetamine fatalities have recently occurred in Southern European countries. The aim of this study is to examine Norwegian methamphetamine trends in recent years, comparing different data sources.

We reflect on the experiences of a researcher conducting a pilot exercise project with marginalized research participants within the substance use disorder treatment field, in a language that was nonnative to her.

Substance abuse, anxiety and depression after 10 years: A prospective study of drug users in and outside OMT treatment AIMS - The national Opiate Maintenance Treatment (OMT) program in Norway started officially in 1998. The same year a treatment study was initiated, including the most used treatment measures for drug users in Norway. The main aim in the present study was to investigate the prevalence of live OMT patients in the total sample after 10 years, and to compare the outcome of primarily substance abuse, anxiety and depression among OMT patients versus non-OMT patients.

Neurodegenerative and inflammatory processes are involved separately in major depression (MD) and alcohol-use disorders (AUD). Little is known about the nature of this relationship in the context of comorbid AUD and depression disorders.

Background: Keeping substance use disorder patients actively engaged in treatment is a challenge. Horse-assisted therapy (HAT) is increasingly used as a complementary therapy, with claimed motivational and other benefits to physical and psychological health. This naturalistic study aimed to assess HAT’s impact on the duration and completion of treatment for young substance users at Oslo University Hospital.

Bakgrunn: Forskning dokumenterer mange risikofaktorer knyttet til overdosedødsfall. Disse vil ha betydning for sykepleieres faglige arbeid i møte med overdoseutsatte personer. Samtidig mangler det studier som belyser sykepleieres erfaringer med faglig arbeid knyttet til overdoser.

BACKGROUND: The tapering of methadone or buprenorphine during pregnancy is an understudied and controversial issue. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent women tapered their opioid medication dose during pregnancy and what the neonatal outcomes were for those who tapered compared to the women who did not.

Background: Little population-based data among middle-aged adults exists examining the relationships between depressive symptoms, alcohol use, and socio-economic status (SES). This study aimed to describe the relationships between depressive symptoms and alcohol use at different levels of SES and to determine differences across SES levels among a population-based sample of 40 and 45 year old adults in Norway.

The Norwegian prison inmates are burdened by problems before they enter prison. Few studies have managed to assess this burden and relate it to what occurs for the inmates once they leave the prison.

Background: Activation of the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism results in increased production of potentially depressogenic tryptophan catabolites and a reduction in tryptophan availability for serotonin synthesis. Since alcohol consumption affects tryptophan metabolism and disposition, we determined serum levels of kynurenine, tryptophan and the kynurenine/tryptophan ratio (KT ratio) in alcohol-use disorder (AUD) patients and compared their levels considering abstinence duration, AUD severity and comorbid depression.

BACKGROUND: Prescription drug sales may vary considerably across regions and over time. This study aimed to assess whether there is an association between mean drug sales and prevalence of excessive use in a range of psychotropic prescription drugs with an abuse potential, and if so, whether the variation in mean drug sales mostly reflects variation in the prevalence of excessive use or mostly reflects variation in non-excessive use.

Use of anti-osteoporotic drugs (AOD) the first year after a forearm fracture in central Norway was low in the period 2005-2012. Women with fractures used more AOD compared to the general population only in 2006, 2007, and 2011. Female gender, age ≥ 60 years, use of glucocorticosteroids, or ≥ 4 different drugs were associated with AOD use.

BACKGROUND: Breakthrough pain affects 40%-90% of patients with cancer pain. Nasal fentanyl is one of the recommended treatments, particularly if the breakthrough pain is of rapid onset.

Aims: To examine whether prenatal exposure to opioid agonist medication is associated with visual selective attention and general attention problems in early childhood. 

OBJECTIVE: Vitamin D plays a major role in Ca and bone metabolism, and its extraskeletal functions are being appraised. Although inadequate vitamin D concentrations have been reported in populations worldwide, too little is known about vitamin D status and its determinants among children in developing countries. We aimed to determine vitamin D status and its determinants in Nepalese children of pre-school age.

Background: Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a new methodology for estimating the drug load in a population. Simple summary statistics and specification tests have typically been used to analyze WBE data, comparing differences between weekday and weekend loads. Such standard statistical methods may, however, overlook important nuanced information in the data. In this study, we apply functional data analysis (FDA) to WBE data and compare the results to those obtained from more traditional summary measures.