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Background: Childcare leave extensions can sometimes negatively affect the professional clinical training of early-career psychiatrists in Japan. During childcare leave, being able to learn in the examination room while staying at home would be useful. Therefore, we developed a training system using a teleoperated robot (Sota) for young psychiatrists who wanted to participate in the examination room during childcare leave while remaining at home. Case Presentation: We report the case of a patient with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) comorbid with Tourette's disorders (P). A young female psychiatrist (D) used the training system to learn from a board-certified psychiatrist. In this case, the board-certified psychiatrist, P, and the robot were placed in the examination room. D teleoperated Sota from home, allowing her to talk to the board-certified psychiatrist and P. She learned about the clinical features of Tourette's syndrome by observing the examination of the board-certified psychiatrist and hearing the patient's distress. P was satisfied with the fact that he was seen not only by a board-certified psychiatrist but also by D. Conclusion: These case findings suggest that our system is helpful for young psychiatrists who want to study in the examination room during childcare leave while staying at home. Future studies should include a single-case experimental design with information regarding key outcome variables and other relevant variables gathered regularly over time.

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According to the nationwide survey of the National University students in Japan, the annual suicide rate in 2012 was 15.7 per 100,000 undergraduate students. In many universities, suicide prevention is an important issue regarding mental health measures, and each university is actively examining this. The current situation concerning measures for suicide prevention in the Japanese National Universities was investigated in 2009. In 2010, the "college student's suicide prevention measures guideline, 2010" was established based on the results of this investigation. This guideline refers to the basic philosophy of suicide prevention in Chapter 1, risk factors for suicide in Chapter 2, and systems and activities for suicide prevention in Chapter 3. The Health Service Center, Okayama University plays central roles in mental health and suicide prevention measures on the Medical Campus. The primary prevention includes a mini-lecture on mental health, classes on mental health, and periodic workshops and lectures for freshmen. The secondary prevention includes interviews with students with mental health disorders by a psychiatrist during periodic health check-ups and introducing them to a hospital outside the university. The tertiary prevention includes support for students taking a leave of absence to return to school, periodic consultation with such students with mental disorders, and postvention following a suicide. We believe that for mental health measures on the university campus, it is important to efficiently make use of limited resources, and that these efforts will eventually lead to suicide prevention.

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Early symptoms of schizophrenia' (ESS) proposed by Nakayasu, are present during schizophrenic prodromal periods. Some of these symptoms can continue after the florid manifestation of the disease and the patients often experience them with ego-alien feelings. Autochthonous experience, heightened awareness, and perception distortion (AHP) were selected from the list of ESS. The aim of this study was to confirm both prevalence and specificity of AHP in patients with schizophrenia as well as the relevance of the presence of AHP to symptomatology of schizophrenia. A structured interview was conducted to identify the presence of AHP in three groups of subjects; a schizophrenia group (Sc) with 37 patients, an affective disorder group (AD) with 27 patients, and a control group (NC) with 39 people. The prevalence of AHP was compared among the groups. Within the Sc, the relevance of AHP to Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was assessed. AHP were present significantly more frequently in the Sc. The total scores for BPRS in the schizophrenic patients with AHP were significantly higher than in the patients without AHP. There was close correlation between AHP and BPRS items, with the degree of relevance depending on the form or perceptual domain. In conclusion, AHP were characteristic of patients with frank schizophrenia. To judge whether AHP were adequately specific to frank schizophrenia, further research of larger subjects is needed. Understanding the characteristics of AHP in patients with frank schizophrenia is important in the symptomatological evaluation of schizophrenia.

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