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Purpose: Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) is still poorly implemented in the routine forensic psychiatric practice. As reliable ROM instruments are lacking, the aims of this research was to assess the psychometric properties of the Parma Scale (Pr-Scale) and its sensitivity to measure scores' longitudinal changes., Methods: Interrater and test-retest reliability, internal consistency and concurrent validity were investigated in offenders with mental disorder. Scores' longitudinal changeability was examined after a 3-month period using the Wilcoxon test for repeated measure., Results: Sixty male adult patients were recruited in this study. Our findings showed good to excellent interrater and test-retest reliability, concurrent validity and internal consistency for the Pr-Scale. Pr-Scale scores also display a moderate to large changeability over time., Conclusions: Our results support the clinical use of the Pr-Scale in forensic psychiatric settings as reliable ROM instrument., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Mental health interventions for Italian prisoners with mental disorders remain a problematic issue, despite radical changes in general psychiatric care and a 2008 major government reform transferring mental health care in prison to the National Health Service. The aim of this study is to describe the mental health intervention model implemented since January 2020 for prisoners allocated in the Parma Penitentiary Institutes (PPI). This approach is specifically based on specialized, "person-centered" and "person-tailored" therapeutic-rehabilitation plans in line with psychiatric treatments usually provided in community mental health-care centers of the Parma Department of Mental Health., Design/methodology/approach: All the processes and procedures included in the PPI intervention model were first carefully illustrated, paying special attention to the service for newly admitted prisoners and each typology of specialized therapeutic-rehabilitation treatment potentially provided. Additionally, a preliminary descriptive process analysis of the first six months of clinical activity was also performed., Findings: Since January 2020, 178 individuals entered the PPI service for newly admitted prisoners. In total, 83 (46.7%) of them were engaged in the services of the PPI mental health-care team (35 with pathological addiction and 48 with mental disorders): 56 prisoners were offered an integrated mental health intervention and 27 exclusively an individual psychological or psychiatric treatment., Originality/value: The results support the potential applicability of an integrated mental health intervention in prison, planning a person-tailored rehabilitation in close collaboration with the prisoners, their families and the local mental health/social services., (© Emerald Publishing Limited.)

Background - Interventions for inmates with Pathological Addiction (PA) still remain a problematic issue in Italian prisons, despite a 1999 major government reform transferring PA care in prison to the National Health Service. Aim of this research was to describe the integrated intervention model implemented for prisoners with PA in the Parma Penitentiary Institutes from January 2020 to June 2020. This specific approach is based on "person-tailored" therapeutic-rehabilitation programs in line with local community PA services. Methods - All the procedures were first carefully illustrated, especially the service for newly admitted inmates and the specialized rehabilitation treatments provided. A process analysis on the first six months of clinical activity was then performed. Results - Since January 2020, 178 subjects entered the service for newly admitted inmates: 55 (30.9%) were taken in charge for a PA. Conclusions - Our results support the feasibility of an integrated intervention model for PA in Italian prisons, based on specialized psychiatric treatments planned and provided in collaboration with inmates and their community health and social services.

Background: The study investigates the prevalence of Panic Disorder (PD) with or without comorbid Major (MD) or Minor Depressive (md) disorder during pregnancy and focuses its attention on the different pattern of risk factors in these two subgroups in a sample of women attending two Centres for Prenatal Care of the Public Health Service., Methods: Two-hundred and seventy-seven pregnant women were assessed monthly throughout the whole pregnancy period using the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) for the screening of PD and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) for the evaluation of severity of anxious and depressive symptoms., Results: Twenty-one women (7.5%) were diagnosed as affected by PD, of whom 12 (57.1%) showed MD or md comorbidity. The development of PD without depressive comorbidity is predicted by a history of previous episodes of Anxiety Disorders while the development of PD plus depressive comorbidity is predicted by a history of previous depressive episodes and by the lack of familiar support., Limitations: Given the small sample size of our anxious and depressed women, the present data need to be verified by using larger samples., Conclusions: The frequent association between PD and MD or md, the analysis of risk factors and of temporal relationship strongly suggests that the panic-depressive comorbidity might represent in fact depressive disorders with intense anxiety symptoms. These findings raise the question if the PD-depressive association is a true comorbidity or reveals the anxious symptomatology of a depressive disorder (MD or md)., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Whether alexithymia is a personality trait which increases the risk of Panic Disorder (PD) is still debated. In this prospective study, alexithymic levels were evaluated before, during and after an anxious episode. Therefore, the alexithymic levels, the presence of PD and the severity of anxious-depressive symptoms were evaluated, at intervals of about 1 month, in pregnant women, attending the Centers for Prenatal Care, using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Twenty-one women affected by PD and 256 healthy women (controls) were included in the study. Women who developed PD, compared to controls, showed similar TAS-20 and HADS scores during the pre-morbid phase, a significant increase of them during PD and a significant decrease after symptoms improvement, whereas no change was observed in controls. Our data suggest that in pregnant women alexithymia does not represent a personality trait that increases the risk of developing PD, and they support the hypothesis that alexithymia is a state dependent phenomenon in PD pregnant women., (© 2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.)