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We aimed to assess, in socio-cultural context, the level of hatred and revenge in war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The sampling frame consisted of 215 Kosova War veterans, randomly selected. The Harvard Trauma Questionnaire was used to assess the prevalence of PTSD and Manchester Short Assessment of Life was used to assess social satisfactions. The participants were asked to declare the strength of feelings of hatred and revenge in the four preceding weeks by using four items scale: not at all, a little bit/sometimes, a lot and extremely. Willingness for action of veterans was assessed using three item scale: yes, no or maybe. A probability level of 0.05 was adopted to be considered as statistically significant for differences among groups. DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD (very similar to DSM-V) were met by 52.6% of veterans; the data have confirmed existence of thoughts and fantasies of revenge against opposing forces by 42.8% veterans; at the same level 42.8% manifested feelings of hatred. Fantasies of taking revenge a lot was recorded by 19.5% and extremely by 1.4% of veterans, while hateful thoughts at level a lot were likely expressed by 22.3% and extreme by 2.8% of veterans. It is important to note that 84.7% were confident to act based on their beliefs. Social-economic and cultural factors have played major role in the understanding of psychological problems of traumatized individuals with a direct impact on their ability to function socially. This study has confirmed the urgent need for the establishment of psychological rehabilitation programs as well as programs for the social and economic rehabilitation of War Veterans.

Some patients with severe mental disorders are refractory to psychotherapeutic or psychopharmacological interventions. We present a patient who at the age of 19 developed several schizophrenia - suspect symptoms. Soon inexplicable general seizures where observed. He was treated with antipsychotics, but had two bouts of malignant neuroleptic syndrome. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) gave some symptom relief and he continued on maintenance ECT for years with weekly intervals. Interruption of this treatment pattern rapidly increased symptom load. After seven years a lorazepam provocation test was performed as he had a new relapse after 3 weeks without ECT. In the ensuing hours his aggressiveness and nonsense speaking rapidly diminished. Kahlbaums observation of seizures as part of a catatonia was not understood in this case. The publication of the new DSM-V diagnosis of catatonia may hopefully reduce the probability of treating a patient for schizophrenia for years without access to a more targeted medication and ECT plan.

Cognitive dysfunctions are a common clinical feature of schizophrenia and represent important indicators of outcome among patients who are affected. Therefore, a randomized, controlled, monocentric, single-blind trial was carried out to compare two different rehabilitation strategies adopted for the restoration and recovery of cognitive functioning of residential patients with schizophrenia. A sample of 110 residential patients were selected and, during the experimental period, a group of 55 patients was treated with sets of domain-specific exercises (SRT+CRT), whereas an equal control group was treated with sets of non-domain-specific exercises (SRT+PBO) belonging to the Cogpack® software. The effects on the scores (between T0 and T1) of the variables treatment and time and of the interaction time X treatment were analyzed: for the total BACS, the main effect of the between-factors variable treatment is statistically significant (F=201.562 P=0.000), as well as the effect of the within-factors variable “time” (F=496.68 P=0.000).The interaction of these two factors is also statistically significant (F=299.594 P=0.000). The addition of cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) to a standard treatment of metacognitive training (MCT) resulted in a significant improvement in global neurocognitive functioning and has reported positive effects with regard to the strengthening of verbal and working memory, selective and sustained attention at T1. A relevant result is the statistically significance of “time X treatment” for all the tests administered: we can assume that the domain-specific cognitive training amplifies the effects of SRT, as the primary and secondary goals of the present study were achieved.

This study is to establish the validity and reliability of Malay version of Post-traumatic Check List-5 (MPCL-5) among the fire and rescue officers in the state of Selangor, Malaysia.

A cross-sectional study was conducted, which involved 100 firefighters from the state of Selangor, Malaysia. Construct validity, internal consistency, and concurrent validity were performed and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Concurrent validity was tested with validated Malay version of Trauma Screen Questionnaire (TSQ-M).

Overall internal consistency reliability was a 0.960 and individual construct Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.827 to 0.926. The model, which consists of four constructs with 20 items, demonstrated the presence of acceptable loading factors. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) are 0.81, 0.65, 0.31 and 0.95 respectively at an optimum cut-off score of 35.

The Post Traumatic Check List 5 (PCL-5) is the latest tool based on DSM-5 developed recently and still having limited studies on the psychometric properties of the tool in local population and the findings produced are comparable with the results from validation from previous studies. The study limitations are population samples used are considering the minimum numbers of sample for each item for factor analysis and the concurrent validation was tested with the TSQ-M instead of the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5).

The study suggested that MPCL-5 is acceptable to be used to measure post-traumatic stress disorder in local populations.

There are limited known validation studies for PCL-5 in local populations and this is the first study done among fire and rescue officers in Malaysia. The results are comparable with findings from previous studies and therefore MPCL-5 are valid and reliable for PTSD screening.