Patients with schizophrenia in Morocco during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal observational study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, social-distancing and confinement measures were implemented.These may affect the mental health of patients with mental disorders such as schizophrenia.This study examined the clinical course of patients with schizophrenia at a public hospital in Morocco during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: This longitudinal observational study was conducted across three periods in 15 months: 1 April 2020 (start of strict home confinement) to 30 June 2020 (T1), 1 July 2020 to 31 January 2021 (corresponding to the Delta wave) [T2], and 1 February 2021 to 30 June 2021 (corresponding to the Omicron wave) [T3].Patients aged 18 to 65 years with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (based on DSM 5) made before the pandemic who presented to the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Rabat were invited to participate.Psychotic symptomatology was evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).Severity and improvement of mental disorder were evaluated using the Clinical Global Impression (CGI)-Severity and -Improvement subscales.Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Calgary Depression Scale (CDS).Adherence to treatments was assessed using the Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS).All assessments were made by psychiatrists or residents face-to-face (for T1) or via telephone (for T2 and T3).Results: Of 146 patients recruited, 83 men and 19 women (mean age, 39 years) completed all three assessments.The CGI-Severity score was higher at T2 than T1 and T3 (3.24vs 3.04 vs 3.08, p = 0.041), and the MARS score was higher at T1 and T2 than T3 (6.80 vs 6.83 vs 6.35, p = 0.033).Patient age was negatively correlated with CDS scores for depressive symptoms at T1 (Spearman's rho = -0.239,p = 0.016) and at T2 (Spearman's rho = -0.231,p = 0.019).The MARS score for adherence was higher in female than male patients at T1 (p = 0.809), T2 (p = 0.353), and T3 (p = 0.004).Daily tobacco consumption was associated with the PANSS total score at T3 (p = 0.005), the CGI-Severity score at T3 (p = 0.021), and the MARS score at T3 (p = 0.002).Patients with a history of attempted suicide had higher CDS scores than those without such a history at T1 (p = 0.015) and T3 (p = 0.018) but not at T2 (p = 0.346).Conclusion: Home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic had limited negative impact on the mental health of patients with schizophrenia in Morocco.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".