Symptoms of Psychoses

1995 ◽  
Vol 166 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshinori Kitamura ◽  
Yuji Okazaki ◽  
Akira Fujinawa ◽  
Masahiro Yoshino ◽  
Yomishi Kasahara

BackgroundThe literature on the statistical analysis of symptoms of psychoses was limited to positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia. The present study explored the relationship between positive and negative symptoms as well as affective symptoms in a wider category of psychotic disorders.MethodThe symptoms of 584 psychiatric patients, consecutively admitted to any of the 95 mental hospitals in Japan, were studied. They manifested at least one of the following: (a) delusions, (b) hallucinations, (c) formal thought disorder, (d) catatonic symptoms, or (e) negative (defect) symptoms.ResultsFactor analysis yielded five factors interpretable as (a) manic symptoms, (b) depressive symptoms, (c) negative (defect) symptoms and formal thought disorders, (d) positive (psychotic) symptoms, and (e) catatonic symptoms.ConclusionThese results suggest that although major symptoms seen among psychotic patients can be categorised into positive, negative, manic, and depressive groups, corresponding to current knowledge of phenomenology, catatonic symptoms constitute a discrete syndrome, while formal thought disorders merge into the negative syndrome.

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S393-S393
Author(s):  
F. Dumitrescu

Introduction“Bath salts” target the endocannabinoid system in a similar manner to cannabis. In the case of designer drug misuse, subjects seem to be at higher risk of psychotic symptoms.AimsTo investigate the nature and frequency of psychotic symptoms associated with cannabis and/or bath salts misuse in a male inpatient population.MethodThe files of 107 patients admitted to the department of addictions, “Al. Obregia” Psychiatric Hospital Bucharest July 2015–July 2016 were reviewed. Cases had a diagnosis of psychotic disorder with recorded cannabis/bath salts abuse.ResultsMean age was 26.65 years old (STDV = 5.9). Mean duration of use was of 83.94 months – cannabis; 60.48 months – bath salts and 33.75 months – both substances (BS). Sixty-three patients (73.3%) presented disorganised behaviour; 55.8% (n = 48) formal thought disorder; 45% (n = 39) paranoid delusions. A strong positive association between the length of use of cannabis and disorganised behaviour (n = 33; r = 0.05; P < 0.05) was found. Grandiose ideation was frequent in cannabis users. (X2 = 4.1; n = 0.03; P < 0.05). Multidrug abuse was associated with increased formal thought disorders compared to subjects with cannabis abuse (X2 = 10.9; n = 0.001; P < 0.05). Negative symptoms were more frequent with bath salts users than with users of both substances (X2 = 13.4; X2 = 23.21; X2 = 16.8; P < 0.05).ConclusionPositive psychotic symptoms were associated with cannabis and BS abuse, while bath salts promoted negative symptoms.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (S1) ◽  
pp. 178-178
Author(s):  
Joana Regala ◽  
Francisco Moniz-Pereira

Background:The nosology and etiological underpinnings of very late -onset schizophrenia-like psychosis (VLOSLP) have remained controversial. This case report highlights its diagnostic complexity.Case report:A 64-year-old woman, with a previous history of hypertension, diabetes, mild cognitive decline, right grade-4 hemiparesis as sequelae of an ischemic-stroke (three years before), started persecutory and partition delusions. After six months, the delusions were accompanied by complex visual hallucinations (scenic, lilliputian and holocampine), elementary auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory hallucinations, causing a profound daily life impact, consequently she was hospitalized. Neither negative symptoms nor formal thought disorders were present. Electroencephalography and laboratorial evaluations were unremarkable (including thyroid function, folic acid, cyanocobalamin, infectious serologies and anti-gliadin/transglutaminase antibodies). Neuroimaging displayed subcortical microvascular lesions in the left centrum semiovale, bilateral thalamic and basal ganglia lacunes. Neuropsychological examination revealed mild/moderate impairment in working-memory, sustained-attention, executive functions, abstract thinking, and visuospatial abilities. Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scored 20/30. Clozapine was started. As psychotic symptoms ameliorated cognitive deficits also improved (MMSE score: 25/30). She was discharged with residual symptoms.Discussion:Late-life psychosis implies a thorough investigation, bringing about challenges in diagnosis. Several medical causes, including neuroinflammatory/immunologic, were ruled out. This two-stage progression, with partition delusions and multimodal hallucinations, in the absence of formal thought disorder and negative symptoms is typical of VLOSP. It is arguable to ascribe our patient’s psychosis to a previous vascular dementia or to VLOSLP. Almost half of VLOSLP patients may develop dementia. It is still debatable whether this propensity is a true characteristic of VLOPSL or reflects an initial misdiagnosis. Some neuropathological studies suggest a restricted limbic tauopathy underlying VLOSP. Notwithstanding, cognitive impairment is common in VLOSLP, including in those patients who do not develop dementia. Neuroimaging studies evidence that lacunar infarction in the basal ganglia alongside chronic white matter small vessels ischemic disease, may underlie the pathophysiology of psychosis via a disruption in the frontal-subcortical pathways. Nevertheless, cases of post-stroke psychosis usually resolve in few months. In conclusion, the neurobiological underpinnings of VLOSLP are complex and multifaceted. More systematized studies using biomarkers and neuroimaging are needed so clinicians can perform a more accurate diagnosis of VLOSLP.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avyarthana Dey ◽  
Kara Dempster ◽  
Michael Mackinley ◽  
Peter Jeon ◽  
Tushar Das ◽  
...  

Background:Network level dysconnectivity has been studied in positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Conceptual disorganization (CD) is a symptom subtype which predicts impaired real-world functioning in psychosis. Systematic reviews have reported aberrant connectivity in formal thought disorder, a construct related to CD. However, no studies have investigated whole-brain functional correlates of CD in psychosis. We sought to investigate brain regions explaining the severity of CD in patients with first-episode psychosis (FEPs) compared with healthy controls (HCs).Methods:We computed whole-brain binarized degree centrality maps of 31 FEPs, 25 HCs and characterized the patterns of network connectivity in the two groups. In FEPs, we related these findings to the severity of CD. We also studied the effect of positive and negative symptoms on altered network connectivity.Results:Compared to HCs, reduced hubness of a right superior temporal gyrus (rSTG) cluster was observed in the FEPs. In patients exhibiting high CD, increased hubness of a medial superior parietal (mSPL) cluster was observed, compared to patients exhibiting low CD. These two regions were strongly correlated with CD scores but not with other symptom scores.Discussion:Our observations are congruent with previous findings of reduced but not increased hubness. We observed increased hubness of mSPL suggesting that cortical reorganization occurs to provide alternate routes for information transfer.Conclusion:These findings provide insight into the underlying neural processes mediating the presentation of symptoms in untreated FEP. A longitudinal tracking of the symptom course will be useful to assess the mechanisms underlying these compensatory changes.


1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy C. Andreasen ◽  
William M. Grove

SummaryMost investigators concur that schizophrenia is probably a heterogeneous group of disorders that share the common features of psychotic symptoms, partial response to neuroleptics, and a relatively poor outcome. The subdivision of schizophrenia into two subtypes, positive versus negative, has achieved wide acceptance throughout the world during recent years. This distinction has heuristic and theoretical appeal because it unites phenomenology, pathophysiology, and etiology into a single comprehensive hypothesis.In spite of its wide appeal, the distinction has a number of problems. These include the failure to distinguish between symptom syndromes and diseases; failure to deal with the mixed patient; failure to take longitudinal course into account; and failure to address conceptually and methodologically the distinction between positive and negative symptoms.This paper focuses primarily on the conceptual basis for two instruments designed to measure positive and negative symptoms, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS), originally described in 1982. Since their description, these scales have been used in a variety of other centers. These scales are based on the hypothesis that negative symptoms represent a deficit or diminution in normal psychological functions wliile positive symptoms represent an excess or distortion of normal functions. Reliability data are now available from Italy, Spain, and Japan which suggest that these scales can be used reliably in cultural settings outside the United States. The results of these studies are summarized in this paper. In addition, a replication study involving a new sample of 117 schizophrenics collected at the University of Iowa is described. In this second study of the SANS and SAPS, internal consistency is found to be quite high in the SANS. Thus negative symptoms appear to be more internally correlated with one another than are positive symptoms. The implications of this result are discussed. A principal components analysis is used to explore the relationship between positive and negative symptoms. While the study reported in 1982 suggested that positive and negative symptoms are negatively correlated, in the present study they appear to be uncorrelated. Overall, the results suggest that the SANS and SAPS are useful comprehensive instruments for the evaluation of positive and negative symptoms. The relationship between these symptoms and external validators such as cognitive functioning or CT scan abnormalities will be reported in a subsequent investigation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 025371762199953
Author(s):  
Bhavneesh Saini ◽  
Pir Dutt Bansal ◽  
Mamta Bahetra ◽  
Arvind Sharma ◽  
Priyanka Bansal ◽  
...  

Background: Normal personality development, gone awry due to genetic or environmental factors, results in personality disorders (PD). These often coexist with other psychiatric disorders, affecting their outcome adversely. Considering the heterogeneity of data, more research is warranted. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on personality traits in psychiatric patients of a tertiary hospital, over 1 year. Five hundred and twenty-five subjects, aged 18–45 years, with substance, psychotic, mood, or neurotic disorders were selected by convenience sampling. They were evaluated for illness-related variables using psychiatric pro forma; diagnostic confirmation and severity assessment were done using ICD-10 criteria and suitable scales. Personality assessment was done using the International Personality Disorder Examination after achieving remission. Results: Prevalence of PD traits and PDs was 56.3% and 4.2%, respectively. While mood disorders were the diagnostic group with the highest prevalence of PD traits, it was neurotic disorders for PDs. Patients with PD traits had a past psychiatric history and upper middle socioeconomic status (SES); patients with PDs were urban and unmarried. Both had a lower age of onset of psychiatric illness. Psychotic patients with PD traits had higher and lower PANSS positive and negative scores, respectively. The severity of personality pathology was highest for mixed cluster and among neurotic patients. Clusterwise prevalence was cluster C > B > mixed > A (47.1%, 25.2%, 16.7%, and 11.4%). Among subtypes, anankastic (18.1%) and mixed (16.7%) had the highest prevalence. Those in the cluster A group were the least educated and with lower SES than others. Conclusions: PD traits were present among 56.3% of the patients, and they had many significant sociodemographic and illness-related differences from those without PD traits. Cluster C had the highest prevalence. Among patients with psychotic disorders, those with PD traits had higher severity of psychotic symptoms.


2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 2419-2430 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Oher ◽  
A. Demjaha ◽  
D. Jackson ◽  
C. Morgan ◽  
P. Dazzan ◽  
...  

BackgroundThe extent to which different symptom dimensions vary according to epidemiological factors associated with categorical definitions of first-episode psychosis (FEP) is unknown. We hypothesized that positive psychotic symptoms, including paranoid delusions and depressive symptoms, would be more prominent in more urban environments.MethodWe collected clinical and epidemiological data on 469 people with FEP (ICD-10 F10–F33) in two centres of the Aetiology and Ethnicity in Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses (AESOP) study: Southeast London and Nottinghamshire. We used multilevel regression models to examine neighbourhood-level and between-centre differences in five symptom dimensions (reality distortion, negative symptoms, manic symptoms, depressive symptoms and disorganization) underpinning Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) Item Group Checklist (IGC) symptoms. Delusions of persecution and reference, along with other individual IGC symptoms, were inspected for area-level variation.ResultsReality distortion [estimated effect size (EES) 0.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.06–0.24] and depressive symptoms (EES 0.21, 95% CI 0.07–0.34) were elevated in people with FEP living in more urban Southeast London but disorganized symptomatology was lower (EES –0.06, 95% CI –0.10 to –0.02), after controlling for confounders. Delusions of persecution were not associated with increased neighbourhood population density [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.01, 95% CI 0.83–1.23], although an effect was observed for delusions of reference (aOR 1.41, 95% CI 1.12–1.77). Hallucinatory symptoms showed consistent elevation in more densely populated neighbourhoods (aOR 1.32, 95% CI 1.09–1.61).ConclusionsIn people experiencing FEP, elevated levels of reality distortion and depressive symptoms were observed in more urban, densely populated neighbourhoods. No clear association was observed for paranoid delusions; hallucinations were consistently associated with increased population density. These results suggest that urban environments may affect the syndromal presentation of psychotic disorders.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Vinod Kumar ◽  
Shree Raksha Bhide ◽  
Rashmi Arasappa ◽  
Shivarama Varambally ◽  
Bangalore N. Gangadhar

SUMMARY Meditation, a component of ashtanga yoga, is an act of inward contemplation in which the mind fluctuates between a state of attention to a stimulus and complete absorption in it. Some forms of meditation have been found to be useful for people with psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression and substance use disorder. Evidence for usefulness of meditation for people with psychotic disorders is mixed, with reported improvements in negative symptoms but the emergence/precipitation of psychotic symptoms. This article narrates the benefits of meditation in psychiatric disorders, understanding meditation from the yoga perspective, biological aspects of meditation and practical tips for the practice of meditation. We also explain possible ways of modifying meditative practices to make them safe and useful for the patient population and useful overall as a society-level intervention.


Author(s):  
Nancy C. Andreasen

We know that psychotic disorders have been present and publicly recognized at least since classical times because of their portrayals in literature: the madness of Medea, the frenzied behaviour in The Bacchae, or the paranoia of Othello. Perhaps the most ‘valid’ portrayal from a modern clinical perspective is the feigned madness of ‘Poor Tom’ in King Lear. However, the definition and delineation of schizophrenia as a discrete disorder is a relatively recent phenomenon. This chapter covers the founding fathers of the concept: Kraepelin and Bleuler, Schneiderian symptoms, psychosis, and the dominance of diagnostic criteria, and the concept of positive and negative symptoms, finishing with a look present and future developments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 286 ◽  
pp. 112857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack J. Blanchard ◽  
Alexandra Andrea ◽  
Ryan D. Orth ◽  
Christina Savage ◽  
Melanie E. Bennett

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