Murat Yildirim, Clodagh Beckham, Sofia Pappa, Karolina Leopold, William J Cottam, Joe Hickey, Olivia Rogerson, Andrea Fagiolini
{"title":"Initiation of aripiprazole once-monthly using a two-injection start in adult patients diagnosed with schizophrenia: real-world views and experiences of Italian healthcare professionals.","authors":"Murat Yildirim, Clodagh Beckham, Sofia Pappa, Karolina Leopold, William J Cottam, Joe Hickey, Olivia Rogerson, Andrea Fagiolini","doi":"10.1708/4785.48115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4785.48115","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Aim: </strong>In Italy, aripiprazole once-monthly 400 mg (AOM 400) can be initiated using a two-injection start (TIS) in adult patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who are stabilised with oral aripiprazole. With this approach, treatment initiation is completed in a single day, without the need for 14 days of concurrent oral aripiprazole supplementation. This study examined how healthcare professionals (HCPs) view and use the AOM 400-TIS in real-world clinical practice in Italy, a country where uptake of the AOM 400-TIS has been relatively high.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Responses were analysed for Italian physicians and nurses who participated in a pan-European, non-interventional, cross-sectional online survey that explored perspectives and attitudes towards prescribing and/or administering AOM 400-TIS in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Responses were collected across two waves and were analysed descriptively.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Responses were available for 108 Italian HCPs, representing 47.2% of all survey participants. Common reasons for using the AOM 400-TIS were poor treatment adherence (81.5%), patient preference (50.0%), and disease relapse (42.6%), while common barriers to its use were patient reluctance to receive two injections (36.1%), concerns about tolerability (24.1%), and concerns about safety (23.1%). Most HCPs agreed or strongly agreed that the AOM 400-TIS resulted in satisfactory patient outcomes (85.2%), was easy to administer (82.4%), and had a safety/tolerability profile similar to the traditional one-injection start (69.4%).</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>The results confirm the favourable clinical opinions, perspectives, and experiences of Italian HCPs who prescribe and/or administer the AOM 400-TIS in clinical practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 5","pages":"202-214"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149138194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Benedetta Riva, Serena Ferrario, Sarah Candotti, Alessandro Grecchi, Paolo Miragoli, Armando D'Agostino
{"title":"[Personal Health Budget as a modulator in the mobilization of primary social networks: the Lombardy Region's experiment at the ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo in Milan.]","authors":"Benedetta Riva, Serena Ferrario, Sarah Candotti, Alessandro Grecchi, Paolo Miragoli, Armando D'Agostino","doi":"10.1708/4785.48117","DOIUrl":"10.1708/4785.48117","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>This study evaluates how interventions based on Personal Health Budget (PHB), a social and health integration tool for users with complex needs, contribute to the modulation and expansion of social networks in patients with severe mental disorders, counteracting social isolation associated with unfavorable prognostic outcomes.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The prospective observational study enrolled 24 subjects diagnosed with severe mental disorder, who were included in the PHB to prevent institutionalization. The sample included patients discharged from a protected community and users from their homes referred by local services. Social networks were assessed using a custom-designed questionnaire, derived from validated instruments, to quantitatively measure network size combined with Todd's Map. Assessments were conducted at baseline, 3 months, 6 months.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>An increase in the size of participants' social networks and in the frequency of both phone and face-to-face contacts was observed, particularly within the local community and in relationships with community peers, cohabitants, and work colleagues. The increase was found in over 49% of cases, at both 3 and 6 months. No statistically significant differences were observed across subgroup of origin.</p><p><strong>Discussion and conclusions: </strong>The results of the study suggest that PHB is an effective intervention model for expanding and diversifying the social networks of individuals with severe mental disorders. The tailored approach and integration and collaboration with the community and the third sector were crucial in promoting inclusion and recovery processes. Longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to confirm the stability of these effects over time.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 5","pages":"226-235"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149138161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lidia Rendace, Andrea Foti, Maria Concetta Altavista
{"title":"[Differential diagnosis between Bipolar Disorder and behavioral variant Frontotemporal Dementia: the role of longitudinal neuropsychological assessment. A Case Report.]","authors":"Lidia Rendace, Andrea Foti, Maria Concetta Altavista","doi":"10.1708/4785.48118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4785.48118","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Bipolar Disorder (BD) and the behavioral variant of Frontotemporal Dementia (bvFTD) can present overlapping clinical features in their early stages, characterized by disinhibition, euphoria, and executive function deficits. Differential diagnosis is particularly challenging when behavioral symptoms are accompanied by evidence of cortical atrophy on neuroimaging.</p><p><strong>Case presentation: </strong>We describe the case of a 48-year-old woman diagnosed with Type I BD since age 25, referred for suspected bvFTD due to a progressive decline in memory functions and sleep disturbances. At the time of evaluation (T0), the patient had been on long-term treatment with aripiprazole, paroxetine, chlorpromazine, and clonazepam. A brain MRI was performed, and a second-level neuropsychological battery was administered to assess memory, attention, executive functions, language, and praxic functions. The entire protocol was repeated after two years (T1). At T0, analysis revealed marked deficits in executive functions, complex attention, and episodic memory; MRI showed moderate bilateral frontoparietal cortical atrophy. At follow-up (T1), despite the structural finding of atrophy, a complete normalization of the cognitive profile was observed, with performance returning to within normal limits for age and education.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The longitudinal improvement confirms that the deficits detected at T0 were an expression of the clinical state of BD rather than a progressive neurodegenerative process. This case emphasizes the fundamental importance of longitudinal neuropsychological assessment and a multidisciplinary approach to avoid misdiagnosis and to optimize the pharmacological treatment of affective and psychotic symptoms.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 5","pages":"236-241"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149138166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Functioning Management & Recovery - Resource Group, a psychoeducational intervention to improve empowerment of people with severe mental illness: a 12-month multicenter randomized control study.","authors":"Franco Veltro, Gianmarco Latte, Cristina Pontarelli, Mirella Alberti, Filomena Cilfone, Mara Barcella, Gabriele Cardone, Laura Silveri, Ilenia Nicchiniello, Irene Pontarelli, Salvatore Iuso, Domenico Mucci","doi":"10.1708/4785.48116","DOIUrl":"10.1708/4785.48116","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Aim: </strong>Functioning Management and Recovery with the Resource Group (FM&R-GR) is a standardized Psychoeducational Intervention elaborated to improve functioning and empowerment of people with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) living in the community. The aim of this study is to prove its efficacy by the primary and secondary outcomes.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>60 patients with SMI were recruited in 5 day-centers (North and South Italy) randomly assigned into 2 groups (Experimental vs Control); patients underwent a multicenter follow-up study with a two time-point evaluation (t0, pre-treatment and t1, 12 months). A highly structured FM&R-GR was used in the Experimental Group (EG), whereas a less structured manual was used in the Control Group (CG). At each time point, Social Functioning, Empowerment and Distress, were assessed as primary outcome; furthermore, Psychopathological Status, Cognitive Functioning, and Cognitive Flexibility were assessed as secondary outcome.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Fifty-nine individuals out of 60 (98.3%) started the study randomly allocated in the EG vs CG. In the EG, 19 people (32.2%) were affected by schizophrenia, 9 (15.2%) by bipolar I disorder with psychotic symptoms and 2 (3.4%) by personality disorders according to DSM-5-TR started the study; in the CG there were respectively 20 (33.9%), 6 (10.2%) and 3 (5.1%). Forty-eight patients, 27 in the EG (56.3%) and 21 in the CG (43.75) completed the study. The total scores of NEL, Distress (p<0.001), and PSPS (p<0.05) showed a statistically significant improvement. The improvement of the other variables in the EG (BPRS, BANS and MFPT) was not statistically significant.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>After 1 year follow-up these results showed improvement in all variables of primary and secondary outcomes, with great statistically significant difference between the two groups for the empowerment, functioning and distress. Furthermore, the pre-post difference in the Experimental Group was statistically significant for all variables with the exception of cognitive flexibility, while in the CG only for the RBANS. Overall, a remarkable impact of this psychoeducational structured intervention was observed on the primary outcome variables.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 5","pages":"215-225"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149138191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sara Patuzzo Manzati, Giulia Piccinni Leopardi, Antonio Lasalvia
{"title":"[Medically assisted death in mental disorders. Clinical uncertainties and ethical implications.]","authors":"Sara Patuzzo Manzati, Giulia Piccinni Leopardi, Antonio Lasalvia","doi":"10.1708/4785.48114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4785.48114","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Medical assisted death (MAD), including euthanasia and medically assisted suicide, has been legalized in several European countries, with a progressive extension to mental disorders in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In cases of mental disorders, access to MAD is subject to strict criteria regarding decision-making capacity, severity of suffering, and prognosis; however, these conditions remain particularly controversial in clinical practice. This narrative review and position paper critically examines three key dimensions: the assessment of decisional autonomy in mental disorders, the nature of the wish for death as a possible symptom expression, and the issue of the treatability of psychiatric conditions. The available evidence highlights the intrinsic complexity and uncertainty characterizing psychiatric evaluations, including the fluctuating nature of decisional capacity, the potential reversibility of death wishes, and the probabilistic nature of psychiatric prognosis. These elements support the need for particularly rigorous and cautious clinical assessment. While a priori exclusion of psychiatric patients from MAD may raise ethical concerns related to autonomy and equality, the specific clinical features of severe mental disorders justify a prudential and individualized approach, grounded in careful longitudinal evaluation and exploration of all therapeutic alternatives.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 5","pages":"193-201"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149138249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrea Fagiolini, Emi Bondi, Filippo Caraci, Giovanni Camardese, Bernardo Dell'Osso, Mauro Percudani, Gabriele Sani, Andrea Fiorillo
{"title":"The role of venlafaxine in the modern treatment of anxiety disorders: a critical update and expert clinical perspectives.","authors":"Andrea Fagiolini, Emi Bondi, Filippo Caraci, Giovanni Camardese, Bernardo Dell'Osso, Mauro Percudani, Gabriele Sani, Andrea Fiorillo","doi":"10.1708/4747.47641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4747.47641","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anxiety disorders are among the leading contributors to global disability and frequently co-occur with major depressive disorder (MDD), chronic pain, and various psychiatric or somatic comorbidities. Effective management of these conditions necessitates a personalized approach informed by current scientific evidence. Extended-release (XR) venlafaxine, a serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, has emerged as a first-line pharmacological option, endorsed by international guidelines for generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder. Its dose-dependent dual mechanism, initially serotonergic, progressing to noradrenergic, enables tailored therapeutic strategies aligned with symptom severity. This narrative review, integrating Italian expert consensus and recent literature, highlights the robust efficacy of XR venlafaxine across anxiety disorders, its favorable tolerability profile due to the osmotic pump zero-order release formulation, and its unique capacity to address residual symptoms such as anhedonia and SSRI-induced emotional blunting. Emerging evidence suggests additional roles for venlafaxine in immunomodulation and the promotion of neuroplasticity, which may further enhance its therapeutic benefit. Given the established role of XR venlafaxine as a key therapeutic option in the pharmacological management of anxiety disorders, and acknowledging the impact of CYP2D6 metabolic variability on its efficacy and tolerability, pharmacogenetic testing could be recommended to optimize treatment personalization. It holds particular promise for patients with comorbid or treatment-resistant profiles, offering measurable benefits in quality of life, functional outcomes, and long-term disease management.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 4","pages":"141-155"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marzia Buonfiglio, Pamela Rosso, Elena Fico, Marta Armentano, Ludovico Alisi, Filippo Brighina, Marcella Nebbioso, Vittorio Di Piero, Alessandro Lambiase, Francesco Di Sabato, Paola Tirassa
{"title":"Neurotrophins as neurobiological correlates of analytic visual information processing and migraine.","authors":"Marzia Buonfiglio, Pamela Rosso, Elena Fico, Marta Armentano, Ludovico Alisi, Filippo Brighina, Marcella Nebbioso, Vittorio Di Piero, Alessandro Lambiase, Francesco Di Sabato, Paola Tirassa","doi":"10.1708/4747.47644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4747.47644","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The present study aims to clarify whether salivary and serum nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels might reflect the cognitive processing style of healthy subjects and migraine sufferers. All subjects underwent the recording of visual evoked potentials (VEP) to evaluate visual habituation. Dosing of plasmatic and salivary levels of NGF and BDNF was performed as well. Our research provides insights into the role of neurotrophins and the analytic style of processing visual information in pain mechanisms, potentially identifying them as targets for new integrated therapeutic strategies, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological, for primary headaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 4","pages":"172-180"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vassilis Martiadis, Angelo Antonini, Antonello Bellomo, Alessandro Cuomo, Giancarlo Cerveri, Rita Allegretti, Martina Petracca, Giacomo Deste, Tommaso B Jannini, Valerio Dell'Oste, Ilaria Di Vico, Mario Cepparulo
{"title":"Perceptions on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with tardive dyskinesia: a cross-sectional survey among physicians in Italy.","authors":"Vassilis Martiadis, Angelo Antonini, Antonello Bellomo, Alessandro Cuomo, Giancarlo Cerveri, Rita Allegretti, Martina Petracca, Giacomo Deste, Tommaso B Jannini, Valerio Dell'Oste, Ilaria Di Vico, Mario Cepparulo","doi":"10.1708/4747.47642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4747.47642","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>This survey aimed to investigate how physicians in Italy recognize, diagnose, and manage tardive dyskinesia (TD), as well as to assess and identify gaps in the current treatment approaches.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A non-interventional cross-sectional online survey was conducted among Italian physicians who had managed patients with TD in the 1 year prior to the survey. The questionnaire explored physicians' demographics, clinical experience, diagnostic methods, treatment strategies, perceptions of TD impact, and health care resource utilization related to TD. Data were summarized descriptively.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The survey included 70 psychiatrists and 30 movement disorder neurologists. Most patients presented with mild (49%) or moderate (35%) TD. Treatment strategies varied by TD severity; antipsychotic dose modification or switching was common, particularly to clozapine, quetiapine, and aripiprazole, whereas TD-specific add-on treatments such as tetrabenazine were rarely used (12% to 21% of physicians prescribed the treatment). Movement impairment was primarily assessed through patient or caregiver reports on quality-of-life impact, while standardized scales like the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale were underused, especially by psychiatrists. Physicians acknowledged significant challenges including a lack of highly effective treatments and an absence of specific Italian or European guidelines. TD was perceived as significantly affecting patients' physical and psychosocial functioning and increasing health care resource utilization.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study highlights variability and unmet needs in TD diagnosis and management among Italian specialists. Add-on treatments such as tetrabenazine are not considered standard of care in Italy due to lack of clinical practice guidelines, concerns around drug efficacy, adverse events, and overall treatment satisfaction.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 4","pages":"156-165"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[From melancolia to major depression: a critical excursus.]","authors":"Carlo Faravelli","doi":"10.1708/4747.47645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4747.47645","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The history of the transition from Kraepelin's concept of manic-depressive psychosis and endogenous depression to the current model of major depression is traced. In particular, the changes that have characterized the transition from the narrative psychopathology of the positivist era to the operational psychiatry of the DSM-III and its successors over the last century are critically reviewed. The birth of psychopharmacology, with the consequent entry of market interests into psychiatry and de-institutionalization, have shifted psychiatric patients from mental hospitals to outpatient clinics, resulting in enormous changes in both quantity and quality of samples. The changing composition of psychiatric population, with an ever-increasing prevalence of non-psychotic cases, and the progressive abandonment of the phenomenological cultural substratum in favor of more empirical paradigms, has rendered old classifications based on narrative criteria inadequate. Hence the need for more 'scientific' models, driven mainly by the need for reproducibility, was necessary for the application of scientific empirical methods. This article focuses on the changes that the concept of depressive illness has undergone in the transition from descriptive psychopathology to the current operational diagnoses. The various forms of depression described prior to DSM-III (endogenous depression, neurotic depression, reactive depression, atypical depression, seasonal depression, masked depression, involutional depression, depressive pseudodementia), examined in the frame do DSM-5, are either excluded because of the lack of evident depression (masked depression, depressive pseudodementia) or all absorbed into the single broad category of major depressive disorder, which thus becomes a broad container which is likely to lack homogeneity, as has been repeatedly pointed out over the years. On the other hand, what the authors of DSM (the latest edition in particular) have proposed as a remedy, the sub-categorization of the disorder through the description of specific typer (the specifiers), is in fact ignored both in research and in clinical practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 4","pages":"181-192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Enkeleda Gjini, Emanuela Prendi, Stefano Terzoni, Vittorio Oliverio, Alberto Bisesti, Margherita Lorusso, Federico Ruta, Armando D'Agostino, Paolo Ferrara
{"title":"The effectiveness of the Motion Room in the prevention of violent behavior and physical restraint in acute psychiatric inpatient units: a cross-sectional survey incorporating a pre-post design.","authors":"Enkeleda Gjini, Emanuela Prendi, Stefano Terzoni, Vittorio Oliverio, Alberto Bisesti, Margherita Lorusso, Federico Ruta, Armando D'Agostino, Paolo Ferrara","doi":"10.1708/4747.47643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1708/4747.47643","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Violent behaviours continue to be a significant problem worldwide. The introduction of Motion Rooms, particularly within acute psychiatric settings, can provide a safe and therapeutic intervention that, by promoting emotional self-regulation, reduces emotional distress and aggressive behaviors.</p><p><strong>Aim: </strong>To assess the effects of a therapeutic intervention through the use of the Motion Room on the risk of violent behavior and the use of physical restraint.</p><p><strong>Materials and methods: </strong>A longitudinal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Motion Room in an acute psychiatric unit. The Italian version of the Broset Violence Checklist (BVC-ita) was used for the assessment of the risk of aggression before (T0) and 2 hours after intervention (T1).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>102 patients were enrolled, 96 (94.12%) completed the intervention. The number of subjects at moderate/high risk decreased significantly at T1 (p=0.01). In the two hours following the intervention, one patient was subjected to physical restraint.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our results suggest that sensory rooms can be a strong support for nursing staff in preventing aggressive behavior in an acute psychiatric ward. Further research with broader sampling and randomized studies is needed.</p>","PeriodicalId":21506,"journal":{"name":"Rivista di psichiatria","volume":"61 4","pages":"166-171"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}