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D Hadzi-Pavlovic

Publications and source records attributed to D Hadzi-Pavlovic.

98 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

The life skills profile: a measure assessing function and disability in schizophrenia.

We review limitations of representative measures of function and disability associated with schizophrenia and specify requirements of a suitable measure for service evaluation: It should reliably and validly assess constructs relevant to survival, function, and adaptation in the community. Additionally, it should be brief, comprise specific and jargon-free items assessing distinct behaviors, and therefore be capable of completion by family members and community housing managers as well as by professional staff. The initial development of such a measure, the 39-item Life Skills Profile (LSP), with its five scales, is described. We report data to suggest that it is likely to be a measure of considerable utility both in research studies and in defining and assessing clinical services.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Endogenous depression as a construct: a quantitative analysis of the literature and a study of clinician judgements.

We review the concept of endogenous depression historically and undertake quantitative analyses of representative factor analytic studies. We also report an empirical study, isolating symptoms and signs associated with a clinical diagnosis of psychotic/endogenous depression, made by a large number of clinical raters assessing 300 depressives. The quantitative analyses and the study of practising psychiatrists agreed in delineating depressive type and together suggest a more restricted construct of endogenous and psychotic depression than has been held historically. Key clinical features isolated were severity, retardation, delusions and paranoid features, non-reactivity and non-variability in mood, while vegetative features appeared to lack relevance.

Adjustment Disorders↗

The work of Australian psychiatrists, circa 1986.

A random sample of psychiatrists was asked to supply details about their last 20 patients. Sixty percent responded. The median patient in treatment was aged 36 and saw a psychiatrist in office practice once a month over a three year period. Forty-one percent of the patient case load suffered from a psychotic disorder, 39% from a neurosis, and 6% from a personality disorder. Marital problems, problems in living and drug or alcohol dependence were infrequent reasons for consultation. Two positive conclusions were drawn: that the case load reflected the morbidity in the community, and that the prognosis for patients with personality disorders was better than usually expected. There were two areas of concern that may need attention: that insight and group psychotherapy require substantial numbers of treatment hours, and that behavioural psychotherapy is rarely used for patients with neurotic conditions.

Adult↗

Views of practicing psychiatrists on the treatment of anxiety and somatoform disorders.

Psychiatrists in Australia were asked to recommend treatments for several anxiety and somatoform disorders. In previous surveys they had agreed about the preferred treatments for schizophrenia and major affective disorder but not about treatments for "neurotic depression" or agoraphobia. In the present survey, no treatment was regarded as critical by a majority of psychiatrists for any of the five anxiety and somatoform disorders studied. The authors conclude that because neurotic disorders form an important part of the workload of psychiatrists, consensus procedures should be used to develop guidelines for treatment until the research literature can provide more adequate guidance.

Adult↗

Some statistics for analysing change in psychiatric research.

Variations in psychological features, including the emergence of, or recovery from, psychiatric disorder, typically involve a long-term process. Consequently, most investigations of these processes will assess the individual or group on a number of occasions, creating complexities in any accompanying statistical analysis. In this paper an approach to analysing such data is introduced, including an extension of the t-test and the analysis of variance.

Depressive Disorder↗

Preparedness to accept psychiatric referral.

A survey of 312 patients attending 13 Sydney general practices suggested that preparedness to accept psychiatric referral by a general practitioner related most clearly to preparedness to consult the general practitioner in the first instance and the perceived likelihood of the general practitioner suggesting a psychological problem, while the sociodemographic characteristics of the patient did not appear of relevance. Data on actual psychiatric referrals by the contributing general practitioners suggested a higher psychiatric referral by practices in lower social class regions of Sydney and a differential referral pattern, with referral to a community psychiatric facility being rare in other than low social class general practices.

Adult↗

Modification of levels of depression in mother-bereaved women by parental and marital relationships.

A sample of 79 young women whose mothers had died in the subjects' childhood, and whose fathers had remarried, was studied to determine any effects on state and trait depression associated with modification of high and low risk parental style. Lack of care from fathers and lack of care from step-mothers were the parental variables most strongly associated with high trait depression, and almost all subjects scoring both these parents as uncaring affirmed a distinct life-time episode of depression. In a married sub-group of 63 subjects, low marital affection and low stepmother care accounted for 33% of the variance in trait depression scores, while low paternal care was no longer a significant predictor. Data for the married sub-group suggested that an affectionate husband largely corrected any diathesis to greater depression exerted by uncaring parenting, while the protective effects of caring parenting on adult depressive experience were largely undone by marriage to an unaffectionate husband.

Adult↗