doi: medRxiv preprint NOTE: This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice.

No abstract

Background:Patients absconding from psychiatric hospitals pose a serious concern for the safety of patients and public alike. Absconding is associated with an increased risk of suicide, self-harm, homicide, and becoming “missing” from society. There are only scarce data on profile and outcome of the absconding patients in India.Aims:To study the prevalence and describe the clinical and coercion characteristics of patients who abscond during inpatient care from an open ward.Methodology:“Absconding” was defined as patients being absent from the hospital for a period of more than 24 h. This is an analysis of absconding patients out of the 200 admitted patients at a tertiary psychiatric hospital. Descriptive statistic was used to analyze the demographic, clinical, and perceived coercion profile and outcome.Results:The absconding rate was 4.5 incidents per 100 admissions. Most of these patients were males, from a nuclear family, admitted involuntarily, belonging to lower socio-economic status, diagnosed with schizophrenia or mood disorder with comorbid substance use disorder and had absent insight. The MacArthur Perceived Coercion Scale score was 4.58 (±1.44), and 80% of the absconded patients felt subjective coercive experiences in most domains at admission. Out of the 9 absconded patients, 2 patients had completed suicides and one continued to remain untraceable.Conclusion:The absconded patients were males; admitted involuntarily; diagnosed with schizophrenia, mood disorder, and comorbid substance use disorder; and had absent insight and high perceived coercion. Absconding patients had the tendency to harm themselves and wander away from home.

Personality disorders are a common comorbidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The effect of comorbidity on the symptom presentation, course, and treatment outcome of OCD is being discussed here. OCD and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) though similar in their symptom presentation, are distinct constructs. Schizotypal disorder, OCPD, and two or more comorbid personality disorders have been found to be consistently associated with a poor course of illness and treatment response. Further research is needed to determine treatment strategies to handle the personality pathology in OCD.

Most studies suggest that obsessive-compulsive disorder runs a chronic course. Only 40%–70% of patients respond to first-line treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The most common pharmacological strategy used in clinical practice for partial responders to SSRIs is augmentation with an atypical antipsychotic. This article aims to review the efficacy, tolerability, and comparative efficacy of antipsychotics as augmenting agents in patients who showed inadequate response to SSRIs. In addition to case reports and case series, 15 randomized controls trials, 6 meta-analyses, and 3 expert guidelines have been examined. The findings suggest that one in three SSRI nonresponders improve with antipsychotic augmentation. The presence of comorbid tics and/or schizotypal disorder may predict a better response to antipsychotic augmentation. Among antipsychotics, risperidone, and aripiprazole have the best evidence, with haloperidol being considered second in-line owing to its unfavorable side effect profile. Guidelines recommend that antipsychotics be administered at a low-to-medium dosage for a duration not exceeding 3 months, with mandatory discontinuation if there is no response. Larger studies and head-to-head trials are needed to further explore this treatment strategy.