ASPR Annual Meeting 2006 302 functional and cognitive decline. The phenomenology of AD delusions has not been adequately addressed; neither has whether AD delusions relate to specific cognitive deficits. Conclusions: Delusions in AD are common and are re- lated to greater rates of cognitive decline. Future stud- ies that explore the relationship between AD, delusions and cognitive decline need to control for methodologi- cal issues and need to examine the phenomenology of delusions and their relationship with specific cognitive deficits. Are affective prosodic deficits evident in bipolar disorder? A O’Regan, SL Rossell, NR Joshua Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria , Melbourne, Australia Background: Deficits in affective prosodic processing have been well established in patients with schizophre- nia. Yet, no study has examined this skill in a bipolar sample, this was the aim of the current study. Methods: Three matched groups (patients with bipo- lar disorder, patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls) completed four affective prosody tasks from the Comprehensive Affective Testing System (CATS); emotional prosody discrimination (EPD), name emo- tional prosody (NEP), attend to prosody during con- flicting prosody (CPP) and attend to meaning during conflicting prosody (CPM). Results: No significant group effects were found for any of the four tasks on either correct reaction time (RT) or accuracy measures. A task effect, however, was found across all four tasks showing a similar pat- tern for the RT (correct) and accuracy data; superior performance on EPD, then CPP, followed by NEP then CPM. Conclusions: The lack of group differences for each of the four tasks may be a reflection of the CATS para- digms lacking the capacity to effectively discriminate subtle differences in performance. An extensive lit- erature indicates that individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder do tend to perform worse on a range of affect tasks that use fearful and sad stimuli. Therefore, the lack of significant group effects in the current tasks may be because of an insufficient num- ber of stimuli per affective category used in each task, thus poor power; alternatively, incongruent accent must be considered, that is, CATS uses American not Australian actors. Further study is recommended us- ing experimental measures of affective prosody. Omega-3 fatty acids and mood disorders C Owen 1,2 , A-M Rees 1 , G Parker 1 1 The Black Dog Institute, Sydney, Australia; and 2 University of New South Wales Background: Over the past century, consumption of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids has decreased dramatically in Western diets, while consumption of omega-6 has increased. There is mounting evidence suggesting that deficits in dietary intake of omega-3 are associated with a range of health problems, includ- ing mood disorders. This review will outline the epi- demiological and clinical evidence for an association between omega-3 depletion and mood disorders, in- cluding unipolar, bipolar and perinatal depression and suicide risk. Method: Relevant published studies are reviewed and theories regarding the mechanisms of action are presented. Results: Strong correlations between rates of seafood consumption and mood disorders have been observed in several epidemiological studies. Biochemical stud- ies indicate that omega-3 levels are lower in the tis- sue of people with depressive disorders than matched controls. The results of several randomized controlled trials indicate that omega-3 supplementation may have therapeutic benefit for depression suffers, although not all trials have shown a benefit. Conclusions: Deficits in omega-3 fatty acids are as- sociated with increased prevalence of mood disorders and offer a potential rational treatment approach. A similar relationship between omega-3 depletion and coronary artery disease may explain the well-described links between coronary artery disease and depression. Inconsistency in clinical trial results to date may reflect differences in the type and dose of omega-3 supple- ment chosen, the depression subtype and/or baseline omega-3 levels of the study participants. Meanings of religion and spirituality for adolescent out-patients T Perich 1 , M Dudley 2 , DH Pavlovic 1 , D Fitzjames 2 1 The Black Dog Institute, Sydney, Australia; and 2 Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, Australia Spirituality is an important but often overlooked area in mental health. This study aimed to examine indi- vidual meanings regarding the concepts of religion and spirituality for adolescents attending a mental health out-patient service. Participants were 53 adolescent out-patients of the Department of Child and Adoles- cent Mental Health, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0924270800031586 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.70.40.11, on 19 May 2019 at 08:36:13, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at