Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A J Prasad.
A survey of non-hospitalised schizophrenics was conducted to test the hypothesis that schizophrenics who had attempted suicide are phenomenologically and demographically different from the ones that do not. On comparison, it emerged that the former had significantly higher incidence of psychiatric morbidity in the family, were on the whole younger and had a much larger number of Present State Examination (PSE) depressive symptoms.
A group of 131 hospitalized schizophrenics who had attempted suicide within the past year was compared with another group of 70 hospitalized schizophrenics who had not attempted suicide, using the Present State Examination (PSE) depressive symptoms. The former had a significantly higher number of symptoms indicative of a depressive disorder.
A group of 25 hospitalised schizophrenics who had attempted suicide within the past year was compared with another group of 30 hospitalised schizophrenics who had not attempted suicide, using the PSE symptoms. The former had a significantly higher number of symptoms indicative of a depressive disorder. It is concluded that suicidal risk in schizophrenia is significantly raised when there are concomitant depressive symptoms.
13 patients who had used violent means of parasuicide, e.g. jumping from a height and hanging were compared with 19 wrist-slashers. The former had significantly higher 24-hour urinary cortisol levels and significantly lower 24-hour norepinephrine to epinephrine ratio. It would seem that in conjunction with the other established neuroendocrine markers, the above-mentioned tests can be of assistance in determination of suicidal intent.
In a study of first-cousin marriages among the parents of a group of randomly selected schizophrenic and affective disorder patients, there was a significant number of such marriages in the schizophrenic group.
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Seven manic patients fulfilling the diagnostic criteria of Feighner et al. who had not responded to previous treatment with lithium and neuroleptics were commenced on sodium valproate after their symptomatology had been rated on the In-patient Multidimensional Psychiatric Scale. Dosage was adjusted up to a maximum of 1500 mg sodium valproate per day. After 6 weeks, 5 patients showed a definite clinical improvement which was further confirmed by the psychometric evaluation. The results suggest that the anticonvulsant drug sodium valproate may have anti-manic activity.