Reshaping the diagnostic borders: Historical analysis of the diagnostic changes following the introduction of the schizophrenia concept.

Background: Although the concept of schizophrenia is still widely presented as having replaced that of dementia praecox, studies have shown that the former was broader than the latter, resulting in a more complex diagnostic redistribution. However, this is poorly documented by quantitative approaches.

Aims: We sought to test the hypothesis that the use of the concept of schizophrenia had caused a diagnostic redistribution and to quantify it.

Cross-cultural French adaptation and validation of the Impact On Family Scale (IOFS).

Background: The IOFS (Impact On Family Scale) questionnaire is a useful instrument to assess the impact of chronic childhood conditions on general family quality of life. As this instrument was not validated in French, we proposed to translate, adapt and validate the IOFS questionnaire for clinical and research use in French-speaking populations.

Findings: The sample studied comprised French-speaking parents with a child presenting a cleft lip or cleft lip and palate, aged 6 to 12 years and treated in the University Hospital of Strasbourg, France.

Towards a new procreation ethic: the exemplary instance of cleft lip and palate.

The improvement of ultrasound scan techniques is enabling ever earlier prenatal diagnosis of developmental anomalies. In France, apart from cases where the mother's life is endangered, the detection of "particularly serious" conditions, and conditions that are "incurable at the time of diagnosis" are the only instances in which a therapeutic abortion can be performed, this applying up to the 9th month of pregnancy. Thus numerous conditions, despite the fact that they cause distress or pain or are socially disabling, do not qualify for therapeutic abortion, despite sometimes pressing demands from parents aware of the difficulties in store for their child and themselves, in a society that is not very favourable towards the integration and self-fulfilment of people with a disability.

Relational development in children with cleft lip and palate: influence of the waiting period prior to the first surgical intervention and parental psychological perceptions of the abnormality.

Background: The birth of a child with a cleft lip, whether or not in association with a cleft palate, is a traumatic event for parents. This prospective, multidisciplinary and multi-centre study aims to explore the perceptions and feelings of parents in the year following the birth of their child, and to analyse parent-child relationships. Four inclusion centres have been selected, differing as to the date of the first surgical intervention, between birth and six months.