Biomedical subjects

A Welner

Publications and source records attributed to A Welner.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1981

Renard diagnostic interview. Its reliability and procedural validity with physicians and lay interviewers.

A psychiatric diagnostic interview that can be reliably and validly administered by nonpsychiatric physicians and lay interviewers has both research and clinical applications. We examined the interrater reliability and procedural validity of the Renard Diagnostic Interview (RDI), an instrument designed for these purposes. Randomly selected psychiatric inpatients were interviewed once by a psychiatrist using our standard departmental research interview and were then given RDIs by two psychiatrists, two lay interviewers, or one of each. The reliability of the RDI is estimated by examining diagnostic concordance for the two RDI interviews. Procedural validity is estimated by examining diagnostic concordance between the RDI and the traditional departmental interview. Both reliability and procedural validity were found to be high, and the study demonstrates that lay interviewers using the RDI after a brief period of training can obtain accurate diagnostic information.

Humans↗

PubMed1980

Effect of tricyclic antidepressants on individual symptoms.

Improvements of individual depressive symptoms in patients with depression was compared between those treated with tricyclic antidepressants (TAD) and those treated with other psychoactive drugs or placebo. In the majority of comparisons, patients did not improve significantly more with TAD than with other drugs or placebo. These findings indicated that tricyclic antidepressants are not useful in the treatment of most patients with depression. Despite our findings, it is realized that a minority of patients with depression may benefit by treatment with tricyclic antidepressants.

Affective Disorders, Psychotic↗

PubMed1979

Psychiatric disorders among professional women.

A group of 111 women physicians and 103 women PhDs, selected from the general community, were studied for the presence of psychiatric illness. Fifty-one percent of the MDs and 32% of the PhDs were diagnosed as having primary affective disorder (P less than .01). Other psychiatric disorders were found in less than 10% of each group. Depression among the psychiatrists was significantly more common (73%) than among the other physicians (46%). More than 50% of all the women reported prejudice in training or employment, and depressed subjects reported prejudice more often than well subjects. The presence of children and depression were shown to disrupt a woman's professional career. The finding of a high prevalence of affective disorder among women physicians is consistent with the reported excessive suicide risk for this group.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Psychiatric adolescent inpatients: eight- to ten-year follow-up.

Seventy-seven adolescent psychiatric inpatients, whose index hospitalization was at a mean age of 16, were followed up for eight to ten years after discharge. The important findings at follow-up were as follows. Twelve patients had bipolar affective disorder and were severely disabled (of these, 11 had a long-term clinical course and three committed suicide). Sixteen patients had unipolar depression: five had one depressive episode and were well throughout the follow-up period, one patient had many episodes with complete remissions, and the remaining ten patients had only partial remissions and their impairment of functioning corresponded to the severity of their symptoms. One of the ten committed suicide. Eighteen (23%) patients were psychiatrically well and functioned adequately throughout the follow-up period. Five had primary depressions, five had undiagnosed psychiatric illness, and eight were diagnosed as not having a psychiatric disorder.

Adjustment Disorders↗

PubMed1978

Undiagnosed psychiatric illness in adolescents. A prospective study and seven-year follow-up.

Twenty-four psychiatrically ill adolescents, unclassifiable by diagnostic criteria, were followed up after seven years. Fifteen had been ill in the interval, and the conditions of 12 of these could, as adults, be diagnosed according to established syndromes because atypical adolescent psychiatric disorder became more typical in adulthood. Nine subjects remained well. Their original disorders had been characterized by depressed mood, reactivity, and conflicts with parents. Such a clinical picture in the absence of drug or alcohol abuse had good prognosis. Among many clinical and sociological features present at the time of the original study, only the presence of a "psychotic" symptom (hallucinations, delusions, formal thought disorder, or bizarre behavior) differentiated those who would be sick at follow-up from those who would be well. Poor outcome was predicted by such a symptom regardless of what the diagnosis later turned out to be.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1977

Psychopathology in children of inpatients with depression: a controlled study.

One quarter of 29 parents hospitalized for depression had children with episodes of depression (eight out of a total of 75 children). None of the children in 41 families with well parents had episodes of depression (a total of 152 children). The differences were significant at the .01 level. It is suggested that symptoms "equivalent" to depression such as hyperactivity, deviant behavior, and learning difficulties are not required in establishing clinical depression in childhood. The methodological shortcomings in this study were discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1977

A controlled study of siblings of hyperactive children.

A controlled study of siblings of hyperactive boys resulted in the following findings. The hyperactive child syndrome is more common among brothers of hyperactive children than among brothers of controls (26 per cent vs. 9 per cent). Both probands and their brothers presented with more symptoms of depression-anxiety than controls. The probands, but not their sibs, presented with more antisocial symptoms than controls. Although differences in intelligence and achievement scores were found between probands, their sibs, and controls, both intelligence level and academic achievement were within normal limits in all groups.

Achievement↗

PubMed1975