Evaluation of intensive inpatient treatment of patients with severe personality disorders.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether severe personality disorders improve or deteriorate with intensive inpatient treatment.

Methods: Overall 216 patients diagnosed as having personality disorders by DSM-III-R criteria were prospectively monitored at two private psychiatric hospitals from admission through discharge to one-year follow-up.

Results: Substantial positive change in the sample was recorded at discharge, and the improvements held up at one-year follow-up.

Children of disaster in the second decade: a 17-year follow-up of Buffalo Creek survivors.

Objective: To conduct a long-term follow-up of child survivors of a devastating human-caused disaster.

Method: Child survivors (2-15) of the Buffalo Creek dam collapse, first evaluated in 1974, 2 years postdisaster, were reevaluated 17 years postdisaster when they were adults. Of the original 207 children, 99 were located and reevaluated using ratings on the Psychiatric Evaluation Form, the Impact of Event Scale, and the SCL-90 and lifetime and current diagnoses from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R.

Children and disaster: age, gender, and parental effects on PTSD symptoms.

Psychiatric reports of 179 children aged 2 to 15 who were exposed to the Buffalo Creek dam collapse in 1972 were rated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms 2 years after the disaster. Age and gender effects and the impact of the level of exposure and parental functioning were examined according to a conceptual model addressing factors contributing to adaptation to a traumatic event. Results showed fewer PTSD symptoms in the youngest age group and higher symptom levels for girls than boys.

[Smoking habit at school. First habit at school. First results of a survey done in Marseille and its suburbs (author's transl)].

The authors report the first results of a transversal survey done from the end of November 1976 to the end of April 1977 in 4 secondary schools (CES, CEG) in Marseille and its suburbs. 1.795 children, between 11 and 15, in the first and fourth form, filled up a questionary inquiring into their smoking habits and consumption.