Self-help, mutual aid and chronic patients' clubs in Croatia, Yugoslavia: discussion paper.

This paper describes the clubs for patients with hypertension which have operated effectively in parts of Croatia and Slovenia (Yugoslavia) for more than 15 years, with many thousands of patients enrolling voluntarily. Based on the principle of self-help, yet involving the regular participation of members of a patient's own primary health team, they increase compliance with long-term treatment regimens and improve the quality of life. Such programmes are capable of reducing the amount of time devoted by a medical practitioner while increasing the effectiveness of treatments.

Age of disease onset in Croatia's hospitalised schizophrenics.

Age at onset was determined in a sample of 360 patients representative of the 8069 schizophrenics hospitalised in SR Croatia. The 95% confidence interval for mean age at onset was 22.9-26.

Characteristics of male and female schizophrenics at first admission.

Based on information from a case register, patient age and diagnosis at first admission are analysed in a Croatian cohort of schizophrenics first admitted in 1972 and followed up through the register for 12 years. Diagnosis was analysed on the same basis and over the same period. Although the male and female differences in incidence rates for schizophrenia were not large, hospital incidence rates in younger age groups were higher in males.

The incidence of schizophrenia in Croatia.

Hospital-based annual incidence rates for schizophrenia in Croatia over 1965-84 did not change significantly. Rates ranged from 0.21 to 0.