There is a pressing need to identify new treatment options for depression and its comorbidities. Depression often coexists with metabolic complications, and the two may share a pathophysiological overlap, including inflammation and microbiota changes. Microbiota interventions (e.g., probiotics) may represent a safe and easy-to-use treatment option as an adjunctive therapy in patients only partially responsive to pharmacologic treatment. (1) Objective: The paper presents the results of a feasibility and pilot study. The study is an internal part of a randomized controlled trail (RCT) of the effect of probiotic supplementation on psychometric, anthropometric, metabolic, and inflammatory parameters in adult patients with depressive disorders depending on the presence of metabolic syndrome. (2) Methods: The trial has a four-arm, parallel-group, prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled design. Sixty participants received a probiotic preparation containing Lactobacillus helveticus Rosell^®-52 and Bifidobacterium longum Rosell^®-175 over 60 days. The feasibility of the study design was assessed, as well as the rates of recruitment, eligibility, consent, and study completion. The following were assessed: depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms, quality of life, blood pressure, body mass index and waist circumference, complete blood count with differential, serum levels of C-reactive protein, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, some secondary markers of inflammation and metabolic health, as well as noninvasive biomarkers of liver fibrosis (APRI and FIB-4). (3) Results: The study was found to be generally feasible. The eligibility rate was 52% of recruited participants with 80% completing the study protocol. No differences in sociodemographic or anthropometric factors or basic laboratory findings were found between the placebo and probiotic group at the start of the intervention period. Importantly, the proportion of recruited participants fulfilling the criteria of metabolic syndrome was too low. (4) Conclusions: Whilst the whole study protocol was feasible, some different timepoint procedures require modification. The major weakness of the recruitment methods was that the percentage of metabolic arms participants was insufficient. Overall, the full RCT design on probiotics in depression with vs. without metabolic syndrome was shown to be feasible with little modification.

Probiotics may represent a safe and easy-to-use treatment option for depression or its metabolic comorbidities. However, it is not known whether metabolic features can influence the efficacy of probiotics treatments for depression. This trial involved a parallel-group, prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled design. In total, 116 participants with depression received a probiotic preparation containing Lactobacillus helveticus Rosell^®-52 and Bifidobacterium longum Rosell^®-175 or placebo over 60 days. The psychometric data were assessed longitudinally at five time-points. Data for blood pressure, body weight, waist circumference, complete blood count, serum levels of C-reactive protein, cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose were measured at the beginning of the intervention period. There was no advantage of probiotics usage over placebo in the depression score overall (PRO vs. PLC: F(1.92) = 0.58; p = 0.45). However, we found a higher rate of minimum clinically important differences in patients supplemented with probiotics than those allocated to placebo generally (74.5 vs. 53.5%; X²(1,n = 94) = 4.53; p = 0.03; NNT = 4.03), as well as in the antidepressant-treated subgroup. Moreover, we found that the more advanced the pre-intervention metabolic abnormalities (such as overweight, excessive central adipose tissue, and liver steatosis), the lower the improvements in psychometric scores. A higher baseline stress level was correlated with better improvements. The current probiotic formulations may only be used as complementary treatments for depressive disorders. Metabolic abnormalities may require more complex treatments. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04756544.

(1) Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive and destructive phenomenon. There is a need for an integrated and comprehensive approach to IPV in order to align prevention, support and treatment. Still little is known about the cognitive and affective markers of IPV that are modifiable. Such knowledge, therefore, can support the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs. In this study, we put forward a hypothesis that, after accounting for the influence of sociodemographic variables, the domains of early maladaptive schemas (EMS) and strategic emotional intelligence would provide additional information for predicting female IPV victimization. (2) Methods: 48 female survivors of IPV and 48 age-matched women with no prior experience of IPV completed the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form 3 (YSQ-SF3) and The Emotional Understanding Test (TRE). (3) Results: The domains of disconnection and rejection and impaired limits were significant predictors of IPV victimization, but the results did not support the predictive value for impaired autonomy, other-directedness and strategic emotional intelligence. (4) Conclusions: Our findings add to the emerging evidence of a link between disconnection and rejection domain and IPV victimization. As a consequence, maladaptive beliefs that interpersonal relationships are unstable and insecure and expose to the risk of humiliation and harm, and that basic emotional needs cannot be satisfied in close relationships, are associated with a higher risk of intimate partner violence. In this context, schema therapy appears to be a promising support for IPV victims.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic, with its multidimensional consequences, is the most serious threat of the 21st century affecting the mental health of women in the perinatal period around the world. Resilience, which assumes the flexible use of an individual’s resources in facing adversity, is an important, protective factor influencing mental well-being. The presented study aimed to determine to what extent psychological resilience, mitigates the relationship between adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and symptoms of depression and anxiety in women in the perinatal period. Methods: We recruited pregnant women from 17 February to 13 October 2021, using social media, the parenting portal, and the snowball method. To assess mental well-being, we used: The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2), Self-report Labour Anxiety Questionnaire—LAQ and the self-developed COVID-19 Pandemic Anxiety Questionnaire (CRAQ). Resilience was measured usingthe Resilience Measure Questionnaire (KOP26). Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), an independent t-test, and a Pearson correlation analysis were performed. Results: Low resilience was significantly associated with depressive symptoms (r = −0.46; p < 0.05) and anxiety related to childbirth (r = −0.21; p < 0.05). No associations were found for resilience and pandemic-related stress. Very high and high perinatal anxiety along with the lowest level of resilience clustered with EPDS and BDI-2 scores indicating depression. Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that lower levels of resilience during pregnancy may be a significant predictor of increased severity of depressive symptoms and higher levels of anxiety related to childbirth among the perinatal population.

Objective: The armed conflict in Ukraine and its impact on Europe's economy have led to an war and economic crisis, potentially affecting the mental health of women during the perinatal period. This study aimed to assess the severity of depressive symptoms and labor anxiety among Polish women in perinatal period during this crisis. Methods: From June 2, 2022, to April 11, 2023, 152 women completed three sets of online surveys-two during pregnancy (before 33 weeks and/or between 33 and 37 weeks) and one postpartum (4 weeks after childbirth). The questionnaires used to evaluate the anxiety and depressive symptoms included Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2), Labor Anxiety Questionnaire (LAQ), and team-developed questionnaires evaluating war-related anxiety (WAQ) and global situation anxiety (GSAQ) Statistical analyses included U-Mann Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon signed-rank, Friedman tests and Spearman's correlations, with a significance level set at p < .05. Results: Among Polish pregnant women aged 23-43, 31.6% of participants experienced depressive symptoms, while 70.4% reported increased labor-related anxiety. Additionally, 24.3% experienced significant anxiety due to the war, and 25% suffered from severe anxiety related to the global situation. Positive correlations were noted between EPDS and GSAQ scores (R = 0.34, p < .001) and LAQ and WAQ scores (R = 0.21, p = .008). Conclusions: The prevalence of perinatal depression is high during war and economic crisis, underscoring the urgent need to improve screening for perinatal depression in Poland. Further, the manuscript did not discuss symptom patterns across the three time points.