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E Bromet

Publications and source records attributed to E Bromet.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Ukrainian application of the Children's Somatization Inventory: psychometric properties and associations with internalizing symptoms.

This paper examines the psychometric properties of the Children's Somatization Inventory (CSI) in 600 10-12-year old children in Kyiv, Ukraine, replicating and extending the original findings from a sample in Nashville, Tennessee (J. Garber et al. 1991). The Kyiv children had significantly lower CSI total scores and reported significantly fewer symptoms than the American children. The Kyiv mothers, however, reported significantly more somatization symptoms in their children than did the American mothers. A factor analysis of the children's data yielded four similar factors encompassing pseudoneurologic, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and pain/weakness symptoms. Consistent with the findings from the Nashville study, the CSI was significantly related to the children's self-reports of health and depressive and anxiety symptoms and to maternal reports of child depression and anxiety symptoms. In addition, although more children with the highest CSI scores (25+) reported various illness experiences than those with 0-1 symptoms, no differences were found in the school absentee records. Thus, the results were congruent with the findings of the Nashville study, indicating that the CSI reliably measured somatization in this Ukrainian sample.

Anxiety↗
PubMed2000

Psychiatric epidemiology.

Psychiatric epidemiology is considered one of the main scientific foundations of psychiatry. This article reviews methodological issues and major studies in psychiatric epidemiology. Methods such as measures of frequency and association are discussed. Selection, observation, and confounding, the main sources of bias in epidemiological studies, are described. Types of study designs, such as cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control, are detailed. A historical perspective of major population-based and clinical studies is presented. Major findings of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study and the National Comorbidity Survey are also included. Finally, future directions in the field are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Who provides the best retrospective information while assessing adult's premorbid functioning? A methodological study in a first-admission sample with psychosis.

UNLABELLED: The present study investigates the quality of data received retrospectively from subjects in their first psychotic admission and from their relatives in comparison to school records. The sample included 161 subjects out of 309 subjects (51.4%) for whom at least part of the information about the school was received. The study showed that valuable information can be extracted from school records if done systematically. Significant other's (usually the biological mother) report more accurately on academic performance during the early school years than the subject himself. The school records did not always report behavioral and social problems reported by the subject themselves or their relatives. CONCLUSIONS: 1) For retrospective information on academic performance the school records can be considered the optimal source. When records are not available, parents, in general, provide reliable information. The respondent himself can be considered highly reliable when reporting poor grades; 2) Disruptive behaviors during the early school years are reported at high frequency by school records. Parents and respondents tend to report increasing disruptive behaviors during the middle and high school years; 3) When eliciting information about social domains it is important to obtain information from all available sources.

Achievement↗
PubMed1998

Risk factors for DSM-III-R posttraumatic stress disorder: findings from the National Comorbidity Survey.

The present study examined the association of childhood risk factors with exposure to traumas and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a unique symptom configuration after exposure to an unusual, extreme event. Data come from the US National Comorbidity Study of 5,877 respondents aged 15-54 years conducted between September 1990 and February 1992. The risk factors examined were preexposure affective, anxiety, and substance use disorders; parental mental and substance use disorders; parental aggression toward the respondent and toward the other parent; and a nonconfiding relationship with the mother during childhood. Analyses were stratified by gender and adjusted for demographic variables and traumatic experiences prior to the index trauma. The occurrence of trauma was associated with many risk factors in women but few in men. Similarly, more risk factors predicted PTSD in women than in men. Overall, when respondents were grouped into broad trauma categories, an increase in the number of risk factors was associated with higher rates of PTSD. However, in analyses of the trauma subsample that adjusted for individual type of trauma (e.g., rape, physical attack), only one risk factor (history of affective disorder) predicted PTSD in women, and two (history of anxiety disorder and parental mental disorder) predicted PTSD in men. The results thus indicate that although these risk factors have an important association with PTSD, they operate largely by predicting trauma exposure rather than by predicting the onset of disorder after exposure.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Summer birth and the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with the deficit syndrome differ from other patients with schizophrenia relative to physiological correlates, course of illness, and response to treatment. Because of the abnormal seasonality of birth among persons with schizophrenia, the authors examined the relation between this risk factor and the deficit syndrome. METHOD: Findings in two clinical groups suggested an increase in summer births among deficit syndrome patients. The association between summer birth and the deficit syndrome was then examined in a catchment area study of first-admission patients with psychosis. RESULTS: In the catchment area sample, summer birth was also significantly associated with the deficit syndrome; negative symptoms broadly defined were not. CONCLUSIONS: These findings add to the increasing evidence that 1) patients with the deficit syndrome have a disease with an etiopathophysiology separate from that of other patients with what is now called schizophrenia and 2) the correlates of broadly defined negative symptoms are different from those for the deficit syndrome. The previously reported association between winter birth and schizophrenia appears to apply to nondeficit schizophrenia only.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Gender differences in the relation between depressive symptoms and alcohol problems: a longitudinal perspective.

Longitudinal relations between depressive symptoms and alcohol problems have been examined infrequently in community-based studies, and gender-specific findings to date appear to be inconclusive. Study hypotheses were that depressive symptoms predicted subsequent alcohol problems for females, whereas alcohol problems predicted subsequent depressive symptoms for males. The authors examined these relations in a random sample of household adults (aged 19 years or more) from Erie County, New York, assessed in 1986, 1989, and 1993 (n = 1,306). Measures of alcohol problems (in the previous year) incorporated an alcohol abuse/dependence diagnosis and a heavy alcohol use index. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was used to assess depressive symptoms over a 1-month time frame. Comprehensive logistic regression models incorporated prior depressive symptoms, prior alcohol problems and sociodemographic variables (age, race, education, marital status, employment, total family income, and number of children living at home). For females, depressive symptoms predicted subsequent alcohol problems over 3 years (odds ratio = 3.04, 95% confidence interval 1.35-6.80, p < 0.01) and 4 years (odds ratio = 2.42, 95% confidence interval 1.14-5.12, p < 0.05), but not for 7 years. There was no evidence to support the hypothesis for males. This study clarifies and extends prior investigations of relations between these two prevalent mental health problems in a community-based sample.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Substance use disorder and the early course of illness in schizophrenia and affective psychosis.

The relationship between a history of substance use disorder and the early course of psychotic illness was examined in 96 subjects with schizophrenia and 106 subjects with affective psychosis followed in the Suffolk County Mental Health Project, a longitudinal study of first-admission psychosis. Subjects received a structured diagnostic interview and clinical ratings at baseline assessment and again 6 months later. The 6-month assessment included information about treatment received during the interval. A lifetime history of substance use disorder was associated with worse clinical functioning at 6 months for schizophrenia subjects, but not for those with affective psychosis. There were no significant associations of substance use disorder with type of treatment during the interval or with self-reported compliance with medication. Schizophrenia subjects were more likely than subjects with affective psychosis to report cannabis use during the interval and to meet criteria for cannabis use disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

HIV infection among young adults with psychotic disorders.

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined HIV infection among young adults with newly diagnosed psychotic disorders. METHODS: The study was based on a research cohort of 320 first-admission patients aged 20-39 years in a semirural-suburban county. Research assessments and medical records were systematically reviewed for information about HIV status. RESULTS: Despite the fact that few patients were tested for HIV, 12 (3.8%) of the 320 patients had a known HIV infection. In all 12 cases, the HIV infection was contracted before the onset of psychosis. AIDS was the leading cause of mortality in the 320 patients. CONCLUSIONS: The HIV epidemic may be having an important effect on the etiology and the course of psychotic disorders.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1996

The deficit syndrome in the Suffolk County Mental Health Project.

Patients with schizophrenia in the Suffolk County Mental Health Project were categorized into groups with (n = 32) and without (n = 52) the deficit syndrome, using a case identification method based on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. The deficit group had a lower level of function at both index admission and 24-month follow-up; these differences could not be attributed to group differences in demographic variables, chronicity of illness, or a greater severity of psychosis in the deficit syndrome group. The number of patients categorized as deficit was greater at 24 months (34%) than at 6 months (25%).

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey.

BACKGROUND: Data were obtained on the general population epidemiology of DSM-III-R posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including information on estimated life-time prevalence, the kinds of traumas most often associated with PTSD, sociodemographic correlates, the comorbidity of PTSD with other lifetime psychiatric disorders, and the duration of an index episode. METHODS: Modified versions of the DSM-III-R PTSD module from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview were administered to a representative national sample of 5877 persons aged 15 to 54 years in the part II subsample of the National Comorbidity Survey. RESULTS: The estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD is 7.8%. Prevalence is elevated among women and the previously married. The traumas most commonly associated with PTSD are combat exposure and witnessing among men and rape and sexual molestation among women. Posttraumatic stress disorder is strongly comorbid with other lifetime DSM-III-R disorders. Survival analysis shows that more than one third of people with an index episode of PTSD fail to recover even after many years. CONCLUSIONS: Posttraumatic stress disorder is more prevalent than previously believed, and is often persistent. Progress in estimating age-at-onset distributions, cohort effects, and the conditional probabilities of PTSD from different types of trauma will require future epidemiologic studies to assess PTSD for all lifetime traumas rather than for only a small number of retrospectively reported "most serious" traumas.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Epidemiology, diagnosis, and course of brief psychoses.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated acute and nonacute brief psychoses. On the basis of previous work, the authors proposed that 1) acute brief psychoses occur predominantly in females, 2) they often do not conform to the diagnoses of DSM-III-R, 3) they are temporally stable, and 4) nonacute brief psychoses do not share these distinctive features. METHOD: The data are from a follow-up study of 221 first-admission patients with affective and nonaffective psychoses. Patients were given extensive assessments at initial evaluation, 6-month follow-up, and 24-month follow-up. The research team made consensus ratings of the presence of psychosis, DSM-III-R diagnosis, mode of onset of disorder, and course of disorder. Brief psychoses were defined by a diagnosis of nonaffective psychosis at the initial evaluation and a rating of full remission at 6-month follow-up; acute brief psychoses met the additional criterion of acute onset as defined by ICD-10. RESULTS: Twenty (9%) of the 221 psychoses were brief psychoses. Only seven (3%) were acute brief psychoses, but among these, six occurred in women, five were undiagnosable, and none had evolved into an affective disorder or a chronic disorder by the time of the 24-month follow-up. The 13 nonacute brief psychoses did not exhibit distinctive features, and five of them later evolved into chronic disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Acute brief psychoses emerged as a highly distinctive and temporally stable form of psychosis that may merit a separate diagnostic classification. The more numerous nonacute brief psychoses may represent mild forms of nonaffective psychoses such as schizophrenia.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1994

[Capgras' syndrome with right frontal meningioma].

We present a 43-year-old woman with a right frontal parasagittal meningioma of the brain who developed the delusion that her husband and children had been replaced by doubles (look-alikes). This type of delusion is typical for Capgras' syndrome. After removal of the tumor the delusion disappeared. The majority of such patients are diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. However, in the past decade there has been an increasing number of cases in which the etiology is suspected of being organic, involving mainly the right hemisphere. The case presented is unique because it is the first with meningioma as a possible pathogenic factor in the syndrome, as evidenced by the cessation of the delusion when the tumor was removed.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Rates and correlates of suicide attempts in first-admission psychotic patients.

The relationship of attempted suicide to demographic characteristics, current and lifetime psychiatric diagnoses, clinical history, and current symptoms was assessed in a sample of 184 recently hospitalized psychotic patients. Forty-three patients (23%) had an attempt history, and 28 (15% of sample; 65% of attempters) made an attempt during the episode for which they were hospitalized. Demographic characteristics did not distinguish attempters from nonattempters. Variables significantly associated with having ever attempted suicide were current diagnosis of unipolar major depressive disorder but not bipolar; lifetime major depressive episode; a history characterized by a less acute onset, lower pre-admission psychosocial functioning, and episodes of physical violence; and a symptom picture characterized by greater depression, hopelessness, negative symptoms, hallucinations and less thought disorder. Those with a current attempt had significantly higher rates of lifetime history of major depression and less physical violence than those with past attempts only. The potential importance of the data for predicting future suicidal acts is discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Gender differences in clinical characteristics of first-admission psychotic depression.

The authors explored differences in the clinical characteristics of 17 male and 13 female patients experiencing their first admission for psychotic depression. Few differences were observed for most depressive and psychotic features, but fewer male than female patients reported fatigue, psychomotor agitation, and systematized and mood-incongruent delusions and more male patients reported feelings of worthlessness. Overall, the findings were consistent with those derived from samples of patients with chronic, nonpsychotic mental illness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Substance abuse and onset of psychotic illness.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship of substance abuse history to psychotic diagnosis and clinical presentation in a sample of 188 subjects with newly diagnosed psychotic illness. METHODS: Subjects were assessed using a structured diagnostic interview and clinical rating scales. The diagnosis and demographic and clinical characteristics of subjects with a substance abuse history were compared with those of subjects without a substance abuse history. Data for males and females were considered separately in most analyses. RESULTS: Substance abuse history was unrelated to initial diagnosis, age at onset of psychotic symptoms, ratings of best and worst levels of functioning, or severity of positive symptoms. Substance abuse was significantly associated with higher anxiety and depression scores on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Males without substance abuse had more negative symptoms and were less likely to have attempted suicide than males with substance abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Substance abuse appears to have limited influence on the clinical presentation of non-substance-induced psychotic disorders.

Adolescent↗