Characteristics of psychiatric hospital absconders.

Absence of patients without leave is common in psychiatric hospitals, and causes anxiety to staff, relatives, and the lay public. Such incidents are difficult to predict. This study attempted to identify the characteristics of patients absconding from a UK hospital over one year.

Sex differences in the phenomenology of schizophrenic disorder.

The content and structure of delusions were compared in 30 women and 30 age-matched men with Schizophrenic Disorder. Men showed an excess of homosexual persecutory delusions and of grandiose delusions involving social status and personal power. Women showed an excess of delusions of fertility and of jealousy, and were more often than men objects rather than subjects in their grandiose delusions.

Use of seclusion in a psychiatric intensive care unit.

Objective: To evaluate the use in a psychiatric intensive care unit of a newly introduced seclusion room for the management of acutely disturbed and/or violent patients.

Method: A specially designed seclusion chart was used to document fully events immediately before, during, and immediately after seclusion. Data from the charts over a 6-month period provided the basis for the study.

A comparison of patients in private and public psychiatric facilities.

Objective: To compare hospitalised patients in private and public facilities.

Method: Retrospective medical record review of 100 patients admitted consecutively to both a private psychiatric hospital and a public facility in South Australia in January, 1985.

Results: There is a paucity of data about privately treated patients with psychiatric illness.

Attitudes towards psychiatric hospitalisation: a comparison of involuntary and voluntary patients.

Objective: To determine the attitudes towards hospitalisation of both voluntary and involuntary patients admitted to a state psychiatric hospital.

Method: Interviews of 100 patients admitted consecutively between September 1983 and June 1984.

Results: Although patients who were involuntarily admitted initially reported unfavourable attitudes, subsequent to admission they had similar opinions regarding their hospitalisation to those of voluntary patients.

Marriage duration, marital adjustment and psychological symptoms: a cross-sectional study.

One hundred and nine couples completed questionnaire measures of psychological symptoms, personality, and marital adjustment. They were divided into groups of short, intermediate, and long marriage duration. Psychological symptoms and marital adjustment remained fairly stable over time, although wives scored significantly worse than husbands on most measures in the intermediate duration group.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: a questionnaire survey of a self-help group.

Ninety-three of 217 members of a self-help group for sufferers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) completed a detailed questionnaire concerning psychological symptoms, biographical data, and the family and social context of their disorder. Eighty-one respondents (49 women) met DSM-III-R criteria for OCD, and the data are based on these. The mean duration of OCD was 18 years, and 74% of respondents rated their symptoms as extremely, very, or fairly severe for at least 50% of the time since onset.

The dismantling of the mental hospital? Glenside Hospital surveys 1960-1985.

Results of the sixth quinquennial survey of the resident population of Glenside Hospital, Bristol, are reported. The total population continues to fall, but the rate of decline has slowed; the implications of this are discussed. Many patients live in an emotionally impoverished state, friendless and rarely leaving the hospital.

A critical survey of scientific methods in two psychiatry journals.

In a critical review of 29 analytical papers from the 1985 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry and the American Journal of Psychiatry, examples of 10 methodological errors were found. Twenty-three papers contained at least one error. The commonest error in design was the failure to assess outcome independently of knowledge of the subjects' groups.

Agoraphobia and parental bereavement.

The prevalence of parental bereavement was determined in 50 married female outpatients with a DSM-III diagnosis of agoraphobia and in a control group of married female outpatients diagnosed as having non-psychotic psychiatric disorders other than agoraphobia. The two groups were matched for age and overall severity of psychiatric symptoms. Compared with the general population, the patient control group reported a statistically significant excess of parental, but not maternal, bereavement.

Rehabilitation in psychiatry.

Psychiatric rehabilitation is the process of enablement and enhancement of personal autonomy of individuals with chronic psychiatric disabilities. Its governing principles are those of common sense and sound psychiatric practice. These principles are outlined and some specific aspects of the process described.

Psychological status of morbidly obese women before gastric restriction surgery.

One hundred and eighteen of 142 morbidly obese women had gastric restriction surgery after completing self-report questionnaire measures of psychosocial adjustment as part of their preoperative psychiatric assessment. Compared with an age-matched normal population, they scored significantly higher on measures of phobic anxiety, somatization, depression, hostility, and marital dissatisfaction, the last being associated mainly with later onset obesity. Factor analysis of questionnaire and weight data showed that weight was largely independent of psychological adjustment, although associations occurred when analysis was restricted to the data on married women, in which marital and self-assertion abnormalities loaded significantly on the same factor.