Tanja Frančišković

University of Rijeka · Faculty of Medicine

Background: The aim of this study was to examine post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom levels and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic among treatment-seeking veterans with pre-existing PTSD. Method: A cohort of 176 male treatment-seeking veterans with pre-existing PTSD during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (T1) and 132 part...

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic is associated with adverse mental health outcomes for people worldwide. Objective: The study aimed to assess mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic and the key risk factors from the human ecology perspective in Croatia’s adult population. Method: An online panel survey with 1,201 adult participants (50.1% women...

Background Mental disorders are highly prevalent, placing an enormous burden on individuals, society and economy. Research shows that family members who provide care to individuals with chronic or disabling mental conditions are themselves at risk. As a response to this problem, the project ‘Family Caregiver Support - Strategies and tools to promot...

Background Numbers of psychiatric beds (general, forensic, and residential) and prison populations have been considered to be indicators of institutionalisation of people with mental illnesses. The present study aimed to assess changes of those indicators across Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) over the last three decades to capture...

Aim: To compare the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and of particular PTSD clusters among help-seeking veterans before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. The second aim was to identify the main coping strategies used. Methods: Male war veterans (N=176) receiving outpatient treatment at the Referral Center for PTSD were a...

Background: In the ICD-11 hierarchical classification structure, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) are separate and distinct but also ‘sibling’ disorders, meaning that the diagnoses follow from the parent category of traumatic stress disorders. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of CPTSD in tr...

Background: Numbers of psychiatric beds (general, forensic, and residential) and prison populations have been considered to be indicators of institutionalization. The present study aimed to assess changes of those indicators across Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) over the last three decades to capture how care has developed during t...

Modern war conflicts, evolutionizing from large-scale collisions of armed forces to local, low-intensity, surrogate, terroristic and information wars, are associated with less direct mortality but with growing and long-lasting mental health consequences. These consequences can be traced in not only combatants and other military contingents and vete...

Background and objectives PTSD rarely occurs on its own and opinions on the correlation between PTSD and its comorbidities are still divided. Methods To identify the comorbidity profile of psychiatric diagnoses in PTSD – affected war veterans and to determine the correlation with mental and health problems. Participants and methods The experiment...

Background: The basic aim of this prospective research was to establish the effect of psychosocial day care programme on the therapy outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. Subjects and methods: While 115 patients with schizophrenia were invited to participate, 100 of them completed the study and were subdivided into two groups. In addition to...

Background: Consequences of war-related traumatisation have mostly been investigated in military and predominant male populations, while research on female civilian victims of war has been neglected. Furthermore, research of post-war posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women has rarely included early-life trauma in their prediction models, so...

Background Zagreb Institute for Group Analysis Training Programme took place in Tuzla University Clinical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH) in response to 1992–1995 war, in helping to train mental health workers in GA to enable them to treat psychological trauma symptoms of war survivors. Objectives The primary objective...

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare observed patterns of drug utilization among patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a postconflict setting with current guidelines and to present baseline period prevalence and change in period prevalence from 2 time periods, 2002 and 2012. Method: The study provides details of th...

SUMMARY Background: The aim of the study was to explore the frequency of depression among the general population of adolescents who were high school students in the city of Zagreb. As depression is associated with increased suicidal risk we wanted to check to what extent depression, as an emotional problem among youth, is associated with auto-aggr...

A series of studies have demonstrated that post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans may cause serious problems in husband–wife relationships. These problems reduce the relationship satisfaction in both partners and may cause redistribution of family roles. The increased burden placed on the wives may lead to burnout, transmission of post-trau...

Objective: The objective of the research was to determine whether the administration of antidepressants, concurrently with antihypertensive therapy, leads to the better regulation of blood pressure in patients with hypertension and increased depressiveness. Methods: Research was conducted in two outpatient family clinics in Rijeka, Croatia, on 4...

1885. godine neurolog G. de la Tourette opisao je sindrom s višestrukim motoričkim tikovima i barem jednim vokalnim tikom. Početak poremećaja je u djetinjstvu/adolescenciji, a uobičajena je pojava motoričkih tikova prije vokalnih. Biokemijske, slikovne, neurofiziološke i genetičke studije potvrđuju da se radi o razvojnom poremećaju s nasljednom ko...

Daily clinical practise , as well as numerous studies show that the problem of autoagression, and with that the problem of alcohol consuption among youth is increasing and at the present time is very actual.The aim of the study was to determine the frequecy of alcohol use among adolescents in the city of Zagreb, and if the presence of alcoholism in...

The aim of this research is to look into the roles of families' social situation and cohesion in adolescent auto-aggressiveness in Croatia. The research was conducted on a sample of Zagreb high school students which encompassed 701 pupils of both genders aged 14-19. The basic demographic data were obtained using the Structured Demographic and Famil...

Purpose: The aim was to assess whether experiences of war trauma remain directly associated with suicidality in war affected communities when other risk factors are considered. Materials and methods: In the main sample 3313 participants from former Yugoslavia who experienced war trauma were recruited using a random sampling in five Balkan countr...

Background: Prevalence rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the experience of war have been shown to be high. However, little is known about the course of the disorder in people who remained in the area of conflict and in refugees. Method We studied a representative sample of 522 adults with war-related PTSD in five Balkan coun...

The study explored factors to which people traumatized by war attribute their recovery from posttraumatic symptoms and from war experiences. : In-depth interviews were conducted with two groups of participants with mental sequelae of the war in the former Yugoslavia: 26 people who had recovered from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 17 peopl...

Exposure to traumatic war events may lead to a reduction in quality of life for many years. Research suggests that these impairments may be associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms; however, wars also has a profound impact on social conditions. Systematic studies utilising subjective quality of life (SQOL) measures are particularly rare and re...

Traditionaly research has been focused on the development of symptoms in direct trauma survivors.However during the last two decades researches and clinitians have strated exploring the way individual traumatic stressexposure affects trauma victims spouses, children and professional caregivers.This is conceptualised as secodnray traumatisation.In i...

To explore which health care and other support services people exposed to traumatic events related to the war use, how helpful they perceive them in the course of their post-war adaptation and whether utilization and perceived usefulness depend on the mental health status of participants. A community sample of 3304 adults exposed to at least one wa...

Objective. To explore which health care and other support services people exposed to traumatic events related to the war use, how help-ful they perceive them in the course of their post-war adaptation and whether utilization and perceived usefulness depend on the mental health status of participants. Methods. A community sample of 3304 adults expos...

Psychotherapy 1285 - TRAINING OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN GROUP ANALYSIS AS THE FACTOR OF DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE OF DIALOGUE IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1992-1995 WAR Hasanovic M.1,2, Izet P.3, Avdibegovic E.1,2, Kravic N.1,2, Moro L.4, Franciskovic T.5,6, Gregurek R.4,7, Tocilj G.4 1Department of Psychiatry, University Clinic...

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder 1258 - QUALITY OF LIFE OF WAR VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA keywords : Quality of life, War veterans, PTSD, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hercegovina Hasanovic M.1,2, Sinanovic O.2,3, Izet P.1,2, Esmina A.1,2, Franciskovic T.4,5 1Department of Psychiatry, University Clinical Center Tuzla, 2S...

Major depressive episode (MDE) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been shown to be the most common mental disorders following traumatic war experiences and have been found to frequently co-occur. This study, designed as a randomized cross-sectional interview survey, aimed to identify whether the co-occurence of MDE and PTSD following exp...

European Psychiatry Volume 27, Supplement 1, 2012, Pages 1 Abstracts of the 20th European Congress of Psychiatry http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924933812753105 P-1143 - Training Bosnia-Herzegovina mental health workers in group analysis in the aftermath of the 1992–1995 war M. Hasanović1, I. Pajević1, E. Avdibegović1, N. Kravi...

Background/aims: War experiences can affect mental health, but large-scale studies on the long-term impact are rare. We aimed to assess long-term mental health consequences of war in both people who stayed in the conflict area and refugees. Method: On average 8 years after the war in former Yugoslavia, participants were recruited by probabilisti...

The primary objective will focus the first of all on Group Analysis (GA) as the psychotherapy method and theory of group analysis applied particularly in post-war environments. It outlines in particular a Zagreb Institute for GA Training Programme that took place in Tuzla University Clinical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, in Bosnia-Herzegovina (...

Previous studies have shown that living with war veterans with PTSD influences psychological well-being of their wives.Objectives To examine the presence of secondary traumatic stress (STS) symptoms, current psychological symptoms, and perceived quality of life among wives of war veterans.AimsTo compare the level of psychological symptoms and perce...

The use of antipsychotics in treatment of children and adolescents requires good knowledge of psychopathology, psychofarmacotherapy, developmental processes and family relations.The combination of clinical experience of those working with psychotic adolescents and a good collaboration with parents, creates a therapeutic space where good results in...

Biological mechanisms of tumor development are largely known, however influence of psychological factors in alcoholics with malignant tumor of the oral cavity and the oropharynx are mostly unexplored. The aim of the research was to examine early family relations and investigate differences in the use of defense mechanisms in alcohol dependent patie...

Depression has been implicated as a possible risk factor for low bone mineral density (BMD). However, there is still no solid evidence that could connect these two different illnesses. This research examined the association between self-reported depression and low BMD in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. This research screened 130 female pat...

No abstract available.

Along with primary traumatization, wives of PTSD-diagnosed war veterans often become victims of the altered and dysfunctional state of their partners, which adds to the severity of symptoms of primary traumatization and furthers the development of other mental disorders. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of primary and secondary trau...

Due to the long-lasting and resistant symptoms characteristic of chronic combat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), its treatment is complex and often requires a tailored therapeutic approach incorporating both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. A multimodal approach of psychoeducative, sociotherapeutic, and dynamically oriented trauma-focused gr...

Background: General psychiatric and forensic psychiatric beds, supported housing and the prison population have been suggested as indicators of institutionalized mental health care. According to the Penrose hypothesis, decreasing psychiatric bed numbers may lead to increasing prison populations. The study aimed to assess indicators of institutiona...

Detailed information on data sources for each country. f institutionalized mental health care in twelve Central and Eastern European countries. (DOCX)

Prevalence rates of mental disorders are frequently increased in long-settled war refugees. However, substantial variation in prevalence rates across studies and countries remain unexplained. To test whether the same sociodemographic characteristics, war experiences and post-migration stressors are associated with mental disorders in similar refuge...

Exposure to war can negatively affect health and may impact on healthcare costs. Estimating these costs and identifying their predictors is important for appropriate service planning. We aimed to measure use of health services in an adult population who had experienced war in the former-Yugoslavia on average 8 years previously, and to identify char...

Introduction Although many studies report that neuroticism and introversion predispose people to PTSD after exposure to traumatic event, the relationship between personality traits and PTSD is still vague. Also, little attention has been given to posttraumatic responses of civilians and especially women after war circumstances. Objectives To explo...

Introduction Arachnoid cysts are rare, benign space-occupying lesions formed by an arachnoid membrane containing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). They are often discovered as incidental findings found on imaging. Occasionally they may produce symptoms because of expansion or bleeding. Objectives The coexistence of arachnoid cysts with psychiatric distur...

Introduction PTSD is dominant, but rarely the only psychological disorder that is present among individuals who have a history of exposure to traumatic event. Objectives To examine morbidity in veterans 12 years after the war, with special emphasis on comorbidity of PTSD and other psychiatric disorders. Methods The study population consisted of 1...

Research background Attitudes of individuals, especially experts, can affect the decision of patients to seek help and to cooperate in the therapeutic process. It is believed that better understanding and knowledge about the disorder leads to more positive attitudes towards patients, especially when it comes to mental disorders. Objective To exami...

To examine the role of perceived stressfulness of trauma exposure and economic, social, occupational, educational, and familial adaptation after trauma in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in displaced war survivors. A cross-sectional survey was conducted between March 2000 and July 2002 with a sample of 173 internally displaced p...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war veterans and its complex emotional and behavioral characteristics affect veterans' partners and the quality of their relationships. Although most research focuses on the effects of veterans' PTSD on their partners/wives and their relationships, not many findings have been established on partner adjustment...

Attachment is a point of interest in psychosomatic research since it influences a wide array of biopsychosocial phenomena. Data from literature highlights the role of this concept in the context of Inflammatory Bowel disease (IBD), still, there is a lack of data regarding attachment among parents of children with chronic gastrointestinal diseases....

Chronic gastrointestinal diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and celiac disease (CD), might have impact not only on the affected child but also on their parents since inside the family framework, a change in each member may have influence on the whole system. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that parents whose childre...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of tianeptine, an antidepressant that acts by increasing serotonin reuptake, in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder and to compare the effects of tianeptine and fluoxetine, an antidepressant from the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors class. 43 war veterans suffering from posttrauma...

The effects of psychological factors in alcoholics with malignant tumor of the oral cavity and oropharynx are scarcely explored. The aim of the research was to examine early family relations and investigate differences in the use of defense mechanisms in alcohol dependent patients suffering from malignant tumor of the oral cavity and oropharynx com...

To determine the presence of disorder of extreme stress not otherwise specified (DESNOS) in Croatian war veterans who suffer from combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The research included 247 veterans of the 1991-1995 war in Croatia who suffered from PTSD and were psychiatrically examined at four clinical centers in Croatia during...

The media have an important role in maintaining and creating social relations and social environment. This especially refers to the war and post-war period in which the media can form a part of the prevention context, i.e., the media can facilitate the process of recovery from war trauma, but they can also contribute to stigmatization and retraumat...

Purpose: according the presence of chronic disease in children, and impact that it may have not only on children but also on parents, we hypothesis that parents with children who have Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or celiac disease (CD)will have lower QoL compared to parents of healthy children. Procedures: participants were parents of children...

The effects of psychological factors in alcoholics with malignant tumor of the oral cavity and oropharynx are scarcely explored. The aim of the research was to examine early family relations and investigate differences in the use of defense mechanisms in alcohol dependent patients suffering from malignant tumor of the oral cavity and oropharynx com...

Children and adolescents are being treated with antipsychotics more often than before, although the risk of adverse events in this age group still remains unclear. Because of increased use of antipsychotics in children and adolescents, their endocrine and metabolic side-effects (weight gain, obesity, and related metabolic deviations) are of particu...

The selection of antipsychotics as medications used primarily for treating schizophrenia and disorders similar to schizophrenia is an important aspect of the treatment of forensic patients. This study examines the effect of antipsychotics selection (typical or atipycal) on the level of aggressiveness, side effects and the hospitalisation length. Th...

The aim of this research was to determine the possible differences in degrees of depression, somatization and anxiety between the acute and chronic female patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD), and whether these differences exist in healthy female patients. Ninety female patients were involved in this research; 60 of them were TMD patient...

War experiences are associated with substantially increased rates of mental disorders, particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Major Depression (MD). There is limited evidence on what type of war experiences have particularly strong associations with subsequent mental disorders. Our objective was to investigate the association of vio...

While in the last century the studies of direct effects of psychological trauma were widely spread, the secondary influence of living with PTSD sufferer remained far less developed field of study. But in the recent years, the researchers and clinicians started examining the way individuals' traumatic stress exposure influences the spouses or partne...

The study aimed at establishing the factor structure of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) in survivors of war. A total sample of 4167 participants with potentially traumatic experiences during the war in Ex-Yugoslavia was split into three samples: two independent samples of people who stayed in the area of conflict and one sample of refugee...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequent consequence of war experience, and specialized centers have been established in some war-affected areas to provide treatment. This study assessed treatment costs and outcomes in such centers in former Yugoslavia. An observational study was conducted in four specialized treatment centers (in Serbia,...

Depression is one of the five most frequent disorders in primary care practice and often remains unrecognized. One of the reasons why depression often passes unnoticed is comorbidity - a number of different chronic diseases coexist with depression, especially in elderly patients. The aim of this research was to assess the difference between depress...

In clinical practice with adolescents we often come across with prepsychotic and psychotic disorders. When an adolescent patient has a positive hereditary burden for psychiatric illnesses in both parents, then the qualification of adolescent's mental disorder seems closer to psychotic. We must have in mind that hereditary burden is only one of many...

War experience may affect mental health. However, no community-based study has assessed mental disorders several years after war using consistent random sampling of war-affected people across several Western countries. To assess current prevalence rates of mental disorders in an adult population who were directly exposed to war in the Balkans and w...

The posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and personality disorder (PD) frequently develop as comorbidity, in war veterans with chronic PTSD in particular. This comorbidity greatly influences the course of disease, therapeutic response and prognosis. In contrast, our clinical experience indicates the PD comorbidity to be rarely diagnosed in PTSD pat...

The use of antipsychotics in treatment of children and adolescents requires good knowledge of psychopathology, psychofarmacotherapy, developmental processes and family relations. It is necessary to have parental consent for the use of a medication in this age, with previous explanation of therapeutic goals, limitations and possible side effects of...

War veterans diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience serious difficulties in social, professional and family life. Consequently, their wives often become indirect victims of their husbands' dysfunction. The purpose of this study was to assess the caregiver burden and burnout level in partners of veterans suffering fr...

Depression and anxiety are prevailing mental problem in patients on chronic hemodialysis and they have great influence on outcome of illness. Additionally, these disorders are rarely identified in that population of patients and they are insufficiently treated. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients...

To assess long-term mental health outcomes in people who suffer from war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but do not receive appropriate treatment. We interviewed 264 subjects from former Yugoslavia, who lived in Croatia, Serbia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. All of them had suffered from PTSD at some point following the war, but nev...

To determine the correlation between social support and PTSD symptoms in women traumatized by the war and postwar social insecurity in Herzegovina. The experimental group consisted of 187 randomly selected women living in Mostar, who were exposed to a wide spectrum of traumatic events during the war. The control group included 180 women living in t...

To assess psychological problems in children as reported by their veteran fathers with war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study group consisted of 154 veterans with war-related PTSD who were treated at the Mostar University Hospital. The control group consisted of 77 veterans without war-related PTSD who were selected from vetera...

Aim: To explore the use of health care and community-based services in war-affected regions of Croatia and its relation to mental health. Methods: A sample of 719 adults exposed to at least one war-related traumatic event were selected by random-walk technique from three Croatian counties and interviewed for socio-demographic data, mental health...

Aggressiveness is a frequent and problematic aspect of the treatment of forensic patients. This study examines the correlation of aggressiveness and its subtypes with quality of life enjoyment and satisfaction, personality dimensions and family functioning. The research is conducted on 99 psychiatric patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychot...

Objective: To determine the correlation between social support and PTSD symptoms in women traumatized by the war and postwar social insecurity in Herzegovina. Subjects and methods: The experimental group consisted of 187 randomly selected women living in Mostar, who were exposed to a wide spectrum of traumatic events during the war. The control gro...

Self-esteem involves the evaluative and affective dimensions of self-concept. It could be influenced by stress situations such as diseases or injuries, especially in the period of puberty and adolescence. The aim of this study was to establish the influence of isolated long tubular bone limbs' fractures in children and adolescents and type of its t...

To determine the symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and possible influences of demographic and socioeconomic factors on the occurrence of secondary traumatic stress in wives of war veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study included 56 wives of war veterans diagnosed with PTSD and treated at the Center for Psychotrauma in Rij...

The presence of psychotic symptoms in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has already been recognized. Using the Structured Clinical Interview Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, we searched for and assessed psychotic symptoms in 91 males suffering from combat-related PTSD. Hallucinations and delusions were present in 20% of patients. We divided a...

To assess treatment outcomes of psychotherapy for war veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to investigate self-perceived social acknowledgment. In this prospective cohort study, a set of psychological instruments was used to assess the level of posttraumatic stress symptoms (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, Impact of E...