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Biomedical subjects

A Vilane

Publications and source records attributed to A Vilane.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Clinical and psychosocial predictors of recurrence in recovered bipolar and unipolar depressives: a one-year controlled prospective study.

Unipolar and bipolar patients with a chronic illness pattern were investigated to evaluate the relevance of clinical and psychosocial risk factors to predict subsequent recurrence. Self-esteem, social adjustment, social support and attributional style were assessed in 27 recovered bipolar patients, 24 recovered unipolar patients maintained on lithium or antidepressant prophylaxis and 26 healthy controls. They were further interviewed every 2 months in a 1-year period in order to diagnose affective episodes according to Research Diagnostic Criteria. Survival analyses and Cox's regressions demonstrated that being a unipolar patient and showing poor social adjustment were the strongest predictors of the occurrence of affective episodes. Self-esteem, social support, attributional style and clinical characteristics, such as age at illness onset, number of previous episodes or of previous hospitalizations and presence of affective disorder in first-degree relatives, were not found to be risk factors for further recurrence. This study stresses the importance of social adjustment in evaluating the outcome of affectively ill patients maintained on medication prophylaxis.

Age of Onset↗

[Suicidal attempts without borders?].

A series of 450 subjects having committed suicidal attempts were examined at the Principal Hospital in Dakar, Senegal between January 1992 and June 1996. Study of the resulting data confirms previous findings indicating that suicidal attempts occur essentially in younger and younger women, rarely after the age of 40. In 42% of cases, the triggering factor involved familial problems, the leading motive being conjugopathy in 15% of cases. At the present time, 90% of people attempting suicide are interviewed by a hospital psychiatrist. In a systemic approach the family is involved as soon as possible. In most cases the acting out implicates a concept of social misconduct. It is linked to the notion of belonging and, while this problem constitutes of marker of social disarray, it is in this area that a transcultural point of view can lead to a more productive dialogue between societies where this warning signal is even stronger and more persistent.

Age Factors↗