Objectives The aim of this study is to examine the prevalence, to report barriers and mental health impact of bullying behaviours and to analyse whether psychological support at work could affect victims of bullying in the healthcare workplace. Design Self-administered questionnaire survey. Setting 20 in total neonatal intensive care units in 17 hospitals in Greece. Participants 398 healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses). Main outcome measures The questionnaire included information on demographic data, Negative Act Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) behaviour scale, data on sources of bullying, perpetrators profile, causal factors, actions taken and reasons for not reporting bullying, psychological support and 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) scores to investigate psychological distress. Results Prevalence of bullying measured by the NAQ-R was 53.1% for doctors and 53.6% for nurses. Victims of bullying differed from non-bullied in terms of gender and job experience, among demographic data. Crude NAQ-R score was found higher for female, young and inexperienced employees. Of those respondents who experienced bullying 44.9% self-labelled themselves as victims. Witnessing bullying of others was found 83.2%. Perpetrators were mainly females 45–64 years old, most likely being a supervisor/senior colleague. Common reasons for not reporting bullying was self-dealing and fear of consequences. Bullying was attributed to personality trait and management. Those who were bullied, self-labelled as a victim and witnessed bullying of others had higher GHQ-12 score. Moreover, psychological support at work had a favour effect on victims of bullying. Conclusions Prevalence of bullying and witnessing were found extremely high, while half of victims did not consider themselves as sufferers. The mental health impact on victims and witnesses was severe and support at work was necessary to ensure good mental health status among employees.

A pilot prospective follow-up study of the role of the branched chain amino acids as additional therapy to the ketogenic diet was carried out in 17 children, aged between 2 and 7 years, with refractory epilepsy. All of these patients were on the ketogenic diet; none of them was seizure free, while only 13 had more or less benefited from the diet. The addition of branched chain amino acids induced a 100% seizure reduction in 3 patients, while a 50% to 90% reduction was noticed in 5. Moreover, in all of the patients, no reduction in ketosis was recorded despite the change in the fat-to-protein ratio from 4:1 to 2.5:1. Although our data are preliminary, we suggest that branched chain amino acids may increase the effectiveness of the ketogenic diet and the diet could be more easily tolerated by the patients because of the change in the ratio of fat to protein.

Anti-hypotensive treatment, which includes dopamine, dobutamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, milrinone, vasopressin, terlipressin, levosimendan, and glucocorticoids, is a long-established intervention in neonates with arterial hypotension (AH). However, there are still gaps in knowledge and issues that need clarification. The main questions and challenges that neonatologists face relate to the reference ranges of arterial blood pressure in presumably healthy neonates in relation to gestational and postnatal age; the arterial blood pressure level that potentially affects perfusion of critical organs; the incorporation of targeted echocardiography and near-infrared spectroscopy for assessing heart function and cerebral perfusion in clinical practice; the indication, timing, and choice of medication for each individual patient; the limited randomized clinical trials in neonates with sometimes conflicting results; and the sparse data regarding the potential effect of early hypotension or anti-hypotensive medications on long-term neurodevelopment. In this review, after a short review of AH definitions used in neonates and existing data on pathophysiology of AH, we discuss currently available data on pharmacokinetic and hemodynamic effects, as well as the effectiveness and safety of anti-hypotensive medications in neonates. In addition, data on the comparisons between anti-hypotensive medications and current suggestions for the main indications of each medication are discussed.