Hallucinatory disorder: preliminary data for a clinical diagnostic proposal.

Introduction: Chronic hallucinatory psychosis is a psychopathological profile reported in French literature but not included in the current Anglo-American psychiatric classifications. We compared a group of patients with a clinical picture related to this syndrome to a group of patients with schizophrenia in order to evaluate the possibility of characterising hallucinatory disorder as a diagnostic entity.

Methods: Nine patients with a clinical profile related to chronic hallucinatory psychosis were compared to a group of nine patients with schizophrenia.

Patterns of clinical use of antipsychotics in hospitalized psychiatric patients.

The ways of using antipsychotic drugs have greatly changed over the last 10 years. The aim of this study was to evaluate such changes in psychiatric patients admitted to the Psychiatric Department of Milan's Ospedale Maggiore in 1989 (n=350), 1999 (n=718) and 2002 (n=628). The medical records of the hospitalized patients were evaluated by analyzing the anamnestic and clinical data with particular reference to age, gender, diagnosis and medication use.

Predictors of clinical outcome in schizophrenic patients responding to clozapine.

Many of the patients who respond better to clozapine (CLZ) than to typical antipsychotics still have residual psychopathology, but CLZ drug resistance data are lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible predictive factors of a clinical response to CLZ in a group of 20 schizophrenic patients (DSM-IV: 13 males and 7 females with a mean age of 35.5 years +/- 7.

Long-term efficacy and therapeutic drug monitoring of sertraline in major depression.

Maintenance treatment for depression should be considered as a chronic disease management programme. Several studies have reported that sertraline (SRT) can be useful in preventing relapses and recurrent episodes of major depression.Twenty-three outpatients, 14 males and 9 females, affected by major depressive disorder, recurrent (DSM-IV criteria) were included.

Clinical outcome and tolerability of sertraline in major depression: a study with plasma levels.

Sertraline (SRT) has been shown to be an effective antidepressant in extensive clinical trial programs but data on plasma concentrations regarding clinical outcome and tolerability are lacking. Twenty-one out-patients of both sexes, with mean age of 50.23 years (S.