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Biomedical subjects

E Persad

Publications and source records attributed to E Persad.

44 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Recruitment into psychiatry: a study of the timing and process of choosing psychiatry as a career.

This is a study of the timing and process of choosing psychiatry as a career. All the psychiatric residents in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto in the academic year 1981-1982 were surveyed. Seventy-eight percent (93 residents) responded. We found that 58.1% had decided to enter psychiatry after graduation from medical school. Of the total group 27% came from family practice programs; 14% of our sample had decided on a career in psychiatry before entering medical school. In our study, 27.9% of the sample decided to choose psychiatry during medical school. The factors which appear influential in determining the choice of psychiatry as a career were interest in psychosocial problems, rejection of other specialties, discovery of prevalence of psychosocial problems in family medicine and other specialties, discovery of effectiveness of psychiatric therapies and the experience of personal psychiatric therapy (23.6%). There is a suggestion that the previous decline in recruitment has been checked and that recruitment is now increasing. The authors discuss recruitment strategies that may increase the selection of the most desirable candidates into psychiatry. If undergraduate teaching emphasized the effectiveness of therapeutic intervention, it is probable that more interested candidates would choose psychiatry earlier.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

The occurrence of secondary affective disorder in an in-patient population with severe and recurrent affective disorder.

One hundred and eighty nine consecutive in-patients with treatment-resistant affective disorder were administered the Renard Diagnostic Interview to determine whether the 45 with secondary affective disorder (SAD) differed from the 144 with primary affective disorder (PAD). The SAD group, including 15 subjects with bipolar disorder, had an earlier mean age of onset of depression and contained more unmarried individuals. The total secondary group could not usefully be differentiated by assessment of clinical symptoms or discriminating analysis of social and clinical variables. While the present study of a severely depressed population does not lend itself to generalisability, this combined sample does have characteristics of patients used in biological investigations. No significant inter-group discrimination was found to support a previous assumption that identification of a prior psychiatric disorder provides the most suitable mechanism for selecting a population for research in affective disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Life events precipitating mania.

A study of 20 manic patients, with patient and matched control comparisons, showed a two fold increase in life events during the 4 month period before admission to hospital. Life events, independent of affective illness and having significant objective negative impact (i.e. traumatic) were significantly more common. These findings are considered in relation to social relationships, family history of affective illness and the use of psychotropic medication.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Treatment of intractable rapid-cycling manic-depressive disorder with levothyroxine. Clinical observations.

Hypermetabolic doses of levothyroxine sodium produced remissions in five of seven women with intractable manic-depressive illness who were followed up for nine months to nine years. These patients had previously required long-term or frequent psychiatric hospitalization. The onset of illness was during the postpartum or involutional period and soon developed into cycles of four or more episodes yearly that did not respond to therapy with lithium carbonate, antidepressants, or neuroleptics. The levothyroxine treatment was unsuccessful in two men and one adolescent girl.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Is stuttering a contraindication to psychotherapy?

This is a case report of a patient who stutters and was treated for problems of self-esteem with focused brief psychotherapy. The literature by and large is against the use of individual psychotherapy for neurotic problems in patients who stutter. The countertransference may account for the unwarranted pessimism in the literature about such patients. In this case the successful resolution of countertransference feelings facilitated the achievement of the goals of therapy. Further reports on such treatment attempts are warranted. Speech therapy may be facilitated by brief focused psychotherapy for the stutterer.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Depressive disorders and HLA: a gene on chromosome 6 that can affect behavior.

To determine whether HLA-linked genes on chromosome 6 influence susceptibility to depressive disorders, we tested hypotheses concerning the distribution of HLA haplotypes among specific constellations of affected and unaffected family members. HLA haplotype identity among pairs of affected siblings in families with two affected siblings and among pairs of older unaffected siblings in families with one or two affected siblings was increased over random expectation (P less than 0.005). There was no increase in HLA haplotype identity among affected siblings in sibships with more than two affected members. When parents had a relative difference in estimated load of genes for susceptibility, HLA haplotypes were randomly transmitted to unaffected or affected children from the affected, "high-load" parent, but not from the unaffected, "low-load" parent (P less than 0.001). These results locate a gene contributing to susceptibility to depressive illness on chromosome 6 and provide a second example of the value of the hypotheses in defining the genetic bases of nonmendelian, familial diseases.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

A comparison of haloperidol, lithium carbonate and their combination in the treatment of mania.

Previous investigations of the treatment of mania have resulted in uncertainty about the efficacy of lithium versus a neuroleptic. In addition there have been reports of toxicity with a haloperidol--lithium combination. In order to determine the comparative efficacy of lithium vs haloperidol vs a combination of haloperidol--lithium, we studied 21 severely ill manic patients who all met rigorous criteria for bipolar illness and who required in hospital treatment. Subjects were randomly assigned to 3 groups: (A) Lithium plus placebo (B) Placebo plus haloperidol and (C) Lithium plus haloperidol. The study was conducted in double blind fashion for 3 weeks with the dosages of the medications varied according to clinical response or untoward effects. Subjects on haloperidol and placebo or the haloperidol--lithium combination were significantly improved after 7 days in comparison to the lithium-treated group. Groups B and C did not differ from each other, either in degree of improvement or in side effects. Inspite of the relatively small sample size the results suggest (1) that haloperidol is superior to lithium for treating severely ill acute mania and (2) that while a haloperidol--lithium combination does not result in a significant increase in side effects, it is not superior to haloperidol alone.

Adult↗