PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

E H Uhlenhuth

Publications and source records attributed to E H Uhlenhuth.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1978

Minor tranquilizers: clinical correlates of use in an urban population.

Rapid growth in the production and prescription of minor tranquilizers has stimulated increasing concern that we live in an "overmedicated" society. Data regarding drug use from a health survey in Oakland, Calif, show that (1) 20% took a minor tranquilizer or sedative during the previous year, 10% daily for a week or more; (2) use was related directly to the amount of distress and dysfunction, to psychologic more than to other types of disturbance, but not to situational stress alone; and (3) taking tranquilizers was only one aspect of a complex pattern of coping behaviors including the almost universal use of some medication, most often a "nonpsychotropic" type.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1978

Psychiatric screening in a medical clinic. An evaluation of a self-report inventory.

A self-report symptom inventory, the Hopkins Symptom Checklist, was used as a screening test for psychiatric disorder in a group of 82 new patients in a university hospital outpatient medical clinic, and the results were compared with interviewer diagnoses. The prevalence of psychiatric disorder in the group was high (83%). Both parametric (discriminant function analysis) and nonparametric (contingency table) methods produced screening results from the patient self-ratings that were statistically significant but of limited accuracy in separating psychiatrically ill from well patients. Comparison of patient and interviewer ratings of symptoms indicated substantial agreement, suggesting that the screening accuracy of the symptom inventory is limited by the absence of historical and observational data.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Intensive design in evaluating anxiolytic agents.

The purposes of this study were: (1) to test the usefulness of intensive design in detecting the effects of an established antianxiety agent in a single patient studied for a period as brief as 8 weeks and (2) to explore the usefulness of combining intensive and extensive designs by jointly analyzing the results from several similarly treated patients. Fifteen primarily anxious, psychoneurotic patients aged 21-50 and scoring 17 or more on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale were admitted to the study; and 11 completed the full treatment program. Medications were diazepam 5 mg t.i.d. and a matching placebo, administered under double-blind conditions. Patients were treated for 8 weeks, divided into 42-week blocks. In each block, the patient received diazepam 1 week and placebo the other, with the order in each block determined at random. The patient came weekly for evaluation, including, self-ratings on the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL), global status, global change; reports of occupational and social function; resting pulse; reaction time; psychiatrist's ratings on the Hamilton Anxiety Scale, global status and global change. The patient also reported daily his mood on the Profile of Mood States (POMS). Mean deviations from the general trend for post-diazepam and postplacebo scores on each criterion were compared within patients. Diazepam-placebo differences on each criterion were analyzed between patients. Criteria that clearly recorded the anti-anxiety effect of diazepam as compared to placebo included the Hamilton Anxiety Scale, the psychiatrist's global status and global change ratings, the SCL Anxiety and Somatization Scales, and the POMS Anxiety Scale. Other criteria that showed a reliable diazepam effect included SCL Depression (decrease), POMS Vigor (increase), POMS Fatigue (decrease), SCL Anger (increase), and reaction time (increase). The most sensitive criteria distinguished diazepam from placebo even when results were considered only from the first 6 patients during their first 4 weeks of treatment- a total of 24 patient weeks of treatment. The factors contributing to the sensitivity of this design were investigated and discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Evaluating antianxiety agents in humans: experimental paradigms.

Conventional clinical trials using parallel groups are relatively insensitive to the effects of psychotropic drugs, especially antianxiety agents. Experimental paradigms based on the single organism research strategy offer an alternative. A free operant avoidance procedure clearly distinguished representative psychotropic compounds, including diazepam and pentobarbital, in normal subjects, and a multiple crossover procedure clearly detected antianxiety effects of diazepam in 11 psychoneurotic patients and antipsychotic effects of chlordiazepoxide in individual schizophrenic patients. Such procedures may serve to evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions in clinical practice as well as in research.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1975

Smooth-pursuit eye movements, and diazepam, CPZ, and secobarbital.

This study examined the effects on smooth-pursuit eye tracking of single doses of CPZ (0.667 and 1.334 mg/kg), diazepam (0.071, 0.142, and 0.284 mg/kg), and secobarbital (100 mg). Only the barbiturate significantly affected the ability to follow a moving target with smooth-pursuit eye movements. In repeated testing of a single subject, 130 mg of secobarbital disrupted smooth-pursuit movements at least until 24 hrs after ingestion.

Adult↗