[Psychopathology of depressive-delusional states with religious content].

Objective: Identification of psychopathological characteristics of depressive-delusional states with religious content, development of a typology, determination of formation features, nosological assessment.

Material And Methods: A total of 79 patients (47 female, 32 male, mean age 27±6.5 years) with depressive-delusional states with religious content within the affective and schizophrenia spectrum disorders were studied. Clinical-psychopathological, psychometric (PANSS, HDRS, S. Huber CRS) and statistical methods were used.

Results: Based on the psychopathological structure, specific mechanisms of development of delusions and themes of the religious experiences, three types of depressive-delusional states were identified: type 1 - with a predominance of depressive delusions congruent with affect and delusional ideas of guilt, sinfulness, abandonment of God (14 patients, 17.7%; 6 women, 8 men; mean age 28±4.5 years; HDRS score 33±5.6, the total PANSS score 71±5.3, the PANSS positive subscale score 15.8±3.7); type 2 - with the addition of incongruent delusional constructs, persecutory disorders and acute sensory delusions to the existing depressive religious delusion, with the phenomenon of confessional ambivalence (27 patients, 34.2%; 16 women, 11 men; mean age at attack manifestation 25±9 years; HDRS score 29.6±4.4, the total PANSS score 87±6.2, the PANSS positive subscale score 23.5±4.2); type 3 - depressive-paranoid states with a predominance of Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome of religious content (38 cases, 48.1%; 20 women, 18 men; mean age at attack manifestation 23.4±2.5 years; HDRS score 32.7±3.7, the total PANSS score 102±7.3, the PANSS positive subscale score 32.5±4.5).

Conclusion: The study of depressive-delusional states with religious content has shown their clinical-psychopathological heterogeneity. The religious experiences served as a pathoplastic factor, which essentially modified the clinical-psychopathological picture of the disease due to presence of the specific religious phenomena. The identified types of depressive-delusional disorders with religious content had different diagnostic value.