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Biomedical subjects

B F Sheffield

Publications and source records attributed to B F Sheffield.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1987

Prediction of outcome in depressive illness by the Newcastle Diagnosis Scale. Its relationship with the unipolar/bipolar and DSM-III systems.

The Newcastle scores of a group of 64 and subsample of 52 severely depressed inpatients were not normally distributed. Evidence for discontinuity in these distributions was adduced from the contrast in outcome between the endogenous and neurotic patients thus defined, the endogenous consistently doing better than the neurotic group. The unipolar/bipolar system failed to predict different results for endogenous and neurotic patients unless unipolar was subdivided into endogenous and neurotic subgroups. The DSM-III criteria for major depression and melancholia failed to identify subgroups of differing prognoses.

Depressive Disorder↗
PubMed1981

Thyroid function screening in psychiatric in-patients.

During a two-year biochemical screening for thyroid disease amongst 191 psychiatric admissions, 38 (20 per cent) had an abnormal result, 5 were hyperthyroid and 7 hypothyroid. Thyroid dysfunction was associated with female sex and affective psychosis, but not with age. During the three weeks before admission the patients with an abnormal result had been prescribed significantly more phenothiazines, antiparkinsonian drugs and lithium than the patients with normal thyroid function. Almost half of those with abnormal function were physically ill on admission. Despite these findings we concluded that in most patients thyroid dysfunction was not a major determinant of the psychiatric disturbance.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Thiamine and pyridoxine lack newly-admitted psychiatric patients.

One hundred and fifty four patients admitted to a general hospital psychiatric unit with a history of poor diet were examined. Serum pyruvate was estimated in all, red cell transketolase in 74 and red cell aspartate transaminase in 66. Significantly more of the 58 abnormally low thiamine patients than of the normal thiamine group showed clinical signs of malnutrition or were diagnosed as chronic alcoholics, drug addicts, schizophrenics or endogenous depressives. Significantly more endogenous depressives than other patients had a raised aspartate transaminase activity coefficient (pyridoxine lack.) While most low thiamine findings are probably manifestations of malnutrition pyridoxine lack may have some aetiological significance in endogenous depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Serum folic acid and B12 in 272 psychiatric in-patients.

Serum folate and B12 estimations were carried out on 272 admissions to a psychiatric unit during 1972 and 1973. 21.3% had serum folate below 2 ng/ml and 26.1% serum B12 below 150 pg/ml. The organic psychosis patients had a significantly lower mean B12 than the others, and were over-represented among the low B12 group. Low B12 status was also associated with low RBC and WBC. Low folate status was linked with depression, malnutrition, physical illness and low Hb, RBC and WBC. There were more chronic alcoholics than others with serum folate greater than 4-9 ng/ml, low RBC and macrocytosis. The presence of one or more haematological abnormalities (macrocytosis, low Hb, low RBC or low WBC) predicted low folate in 76%, and low B12 in 79%, but these were also found in 40% of the normal folate and 41% of the normal B12 patients. Macrocytosis may prove to be a reliable sign of alcoholic abuse.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

A new personal disturbance scale (DSSI/sAD).

A brief self-report measure of personal disturbance is presented. Being derived from the Delusions-Symptoms-States Inventory, it focuses exclusively on recent symptomatology, uncontaminated by personality attributes. Data are presented which show significant agreement (a) for the allocation of the items to syndromes by experiences raters, and (b) between patients' self-report and their psychiatrists' ratings. At the anxiety, depression, and total sAD scale levels a high discrimination is found between the normal and pmal distributions, both of which are in contrast to personality measures. The scales appear relevant to treatment evaluation and for detecting the personally disturbed in general populations.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMed1976

Crohn's disease: a psychosomatic illness?

We investigated the psychological status of Crohn's disease patients because 10 such patients had been referred to our psychiatric out-patient department over a period of six years, whereas if there were no association between the disease and psychiatric morbidity, the expected referral rate would be one case in 20 to 100 years. We found an association between episodes of psychiatric and physical symptoms in the case histories. We administered the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Manifest Anxiety Scale to 28 out-patients with Crohn's disease (8 psychiatrically and 20 non-psychiatrically referred), 17 with chronic non-psychosomatic medical diseases, 43 with psychosomatic diseases and 100 with neurosis. Crohn's disease patients were significantly more anxious, neurotic and introverted than both the test norms and the non-psychosomatic medical out-patients and did not differ appreciably from the psychosomatic patients in these respect.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMed1976

Comparison of antipsychotic depot injections in the maintenance treatment of schizophrenia.

122 Schizophrenic patients treated with injections of fluphenazine ethanate, 97 with fluphenazine decanoate and 199 with flupenthixol decanoate were followed up for mean times of 41, 33 and 21 months respectively. Their progress was compared by examining reasons for discontinuing injections and outcome in three separate groups defined according to first preparation given; relating the events causing patients to discontinue injections or be readmitted to patient-months spent on each drug; and analysing reasons for inter-drug transfers 43 per cent, 24 per cent and 23 per cent respectively of these three groups of patients discontinued the injections. Severe extrapyramidal effects were most frequent with fluphenazine ethanate, intermediate with fluphenazine decanote, and least frequent frequent with flupenthixol. Lack of cooperation was rather more frequent with flupenthixol than with the other drugs. Severe depression occurred with all three. More patients on fluphenazine injections were transferred for any reason to flupenthixol than vice-versa. A case of 'irreversible' movement disorder was seen with each preparation. It is suggested that current maintenance doses of flupenthixol decanoate are too low.

Adolescent↗