Most violence risk assessment scales were originally developed for use in forensic settings at the time of discharge or release of patients into the community after long-term treatment. However, there is a considerable need for specialized, brief and structured risk assessment tools to inform risk decisions in short-term psychiatric treatment. The present study reports on research findings from the development and implementation of the violence risk screening-10 (V-RISK-10) in two acute psychiatric settings in Norway. The 10-item screen is easy to use, time-saving and may be used for screening of violence risk during hospital stay and after discharge into the community. Prospective validation studies of the screen concerning inpatient and post-release community violence have been conducted. Although data analyses are not yet complete, preliminary findings indicate that the screen has good predictive validity. This suggests that the screen is a promising tool in short-term acute psychiatric settings. However, the importance of reliability in mental health data and tests is well recognized, and a screen with good predictive validity is not worth much if clinicians are unable to agree on the scoring of one and the same patient. In this article we report results from a naturalistic interrater reliability investigation that involved 25 mental health professionals and 73 acute psychiatric patients. V-RISK-10 scoring was accomplished by two raters for each patient. The interrater reliability value for total scores was acceptable. Variations pertaining to the individual V-RISK-10 item, patient characteristics and rater characteristics are discussed.

Response inhibition is the cognitive process required to cancel an intended action. During that process, a “go” reaction is intercepted particularly by the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) and presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). After the commission of inhibition errors, theta activity (4–8 Hz) is related to the adaption processes. In this study, we intend to examine whether the boosting of theta activity by electrical stimulation over rIFG reduces the number of errors and the reaction times in a response inhibition task (Go/NoGo paradigm) during and after stimulation. 23 healthy right-handed adults participated in the study. In three separate sessions, theta tACS at 6 Hz, transcranial random noise (tRNS) as a second stimulation condition, and sham stimulation were applied for 20 minutes. Based on behavioral data, this study could not show any effects of 6 Hz tACS as well as full spectrum tRNS on response inhibition in any of the conditions. Since many findings support the relevance of the rIFG for response inhibition, this could mean that 6 Hz activity is not important for response inhibition in that structure. Reasons for our null findings could also lie in the stimulation parameters, such as the electrode montage or the stimulation frequency, which are discussed in this article in more detail. Sharing negative findings will have (1) positive impact on future research questions and study design and will improve (2) knowledge acquisition of noninvasive transcranial brain stimulation techniques.

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC), can produce significant effects on working memory (WM) performance and associated neurophysiological activity. However, results from previous studies are inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. This inconsistency may be attributed to methodological and individual differences during experiments. This study therefore investigated two hypotheses: (1) A multichannel-optimized montage was expected to be more effective than a classical bipolar montage, because of increased focality. (2) The subjects were expected to benefit differently from the stimulation depending on their initial task performance. In a sham-controlled crossover study, 24 healthy participants received bipolar, multichannel, and sham stimulation for 20 min in randomized order, targeting the lDLPFC while performing a 2-back WM task. After stimulation, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded at rest and during 2-back and nontarget continuous performance task (CPT) performance. Bipolar and multichannel stimulations were both well tolerated and effectively blinded. We found no effect of stimulation on behavioral performance or neuronal oscillations comparing the classical bipolar or multichannel montage with sham stimulation. We did, however, find an interaction between stimulation and initial task performance. For multichannel stimulation, initially low-performing participants tended to improve their WM performance while initially high-performing participants tended to worsen their performance compared to sham stimulation. Both tDCS montages induced changes in neural oscillatory power, which correlated with baseline performance. The worse the participants’ initial WM performance was, the more task-related theta power was induced by multichannel and bipolar stimulation. The same effect was observed for alpha power in the nontarget task following multichannel stimulation. Notably, we were not able to show a superiority of multichannel stimulation compared to bipolar stimulation. Still, comparing both montages with sham stimulation, multichannel stimulation led to stronger effects than bipolar stimulation. The current study highlights the importance of investigating different parameters with potential influence on tDCS effects in combination. Our results demonstrate how individual differences in cognitive performance and electrode montages influence effects of tDCS on neuropsychological performance. These findings support the idea of an individualized and optimized stimulation setting, potentially leading to increased tDCS effects.

BackgroundThere is increasing evidence that regulatory problems (RPs), such as excessive crying, sleeping or feeding problems in infancy, could be associated with the development of behavioral problems in childhood. In this meta-analysis we aimed to investigate the strength and characteristics of this association.MethodsA systematic literature search (PubMed/PsycInfo, until 15/08/2021) for longitudinal prospective studies of infants with RPs and at least one follow-up assessment reporting incidence and/or severity of behavioral problems was conducted. The primary outcomes were (i) the cumulative incidence of behavioral problems in children (2–14 years) with previous RPs and (ii) the difference between children with/without previous RPs with regard to the incidence and severity of externalizing, internalizing and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Additionally, we analyzed behavioral problems of children with previous single, multiple or no RPs and with respect to age at follow-up. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses were added.Results30 meta-analyzed studies reported on 34,582 participants (nRP = 5091, ncontrol = 29,491; age: baseline = 6.5 ± 4.5 months, follow-up = 5.5 ± 2.8 years) with excessive crying (studies = 13, n = 1577), sleeping problems (studies = 9, n = 2014), eating problems (studies = 3, n = 105), any single (studies = 2, n = 201) or multiple RPs (studies = 9, n = 1194). The cumulative incidence for behavioral problems during childhood was 23.3% in children with RPs. Behavioral problems were significantly more pronounced in infants with RPs compared to healthy controls (SMD = 0.381, 95% CI = 0.296–0.466, p < .001), particularly with multiple RPs (SMD = 0.291, p = 0.018).ConclusionsFindings suggest that RPs in infancy are associated with overall behavioral problems (externalizing or internalizing behavior and ADHD symptoms) in childhood. Our data cannot explain linked developmental trajectories and underlying factors. However, detection of affected infants may help to adapt supportive measures to the individual familial needs to promote the parent-child-relationship and prevent the development of child behavioral problems from early on.