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Biomedical subjects

E Sturt

Publications and source records attributed to E Sturt.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Antidepressants may not assist recovery in practice: a naturalistic prospective survey.

A total of 130 people attending psychiatric hospitals within 6 months of onset or relapse of an episode of depressive disorder were interviewed about their symptoms and treatment at the time of their initial contact. After a mean 4-month interval, 119 were reassessed to test the hypothesis that patients treated with antidepressants would be significantly more likely to be clinically improved compared with those untreated. Severity and duration of the episode emerged as the only significant clinical predictors of clinical improvement. Patients on treatment with antidepressants at the start of the study showed a nonsignificant trend for a lesser degree of clinical improvement, even when clinical severity and compliance were taken into account. Those who were not commenced on treatment until later in the study also fared no better than those who were never prescribed antidepressants. The effect of low doses of antidepressants (almost always a tricyclic) appeared to be less beneficial than either higher doses or clinical management without antidepressant drugs. The need for further experimental and naturalistic studies conducted over various periods of time and the implications for clinical practice, medical audit and the appropriate use of health outcome indicators are discussed.

Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic↗
PubMed1992

Abnormalities of response processing in a chronic psychiatric group. A possible predictor of failure in rehabilitation programmes?

This study attempted to identify, in a mixed group of chronic patients, a specific measure of cognitive processing that may be of use in predicting dependence on psychiatric care. The measures investigated are derived from reaction-time tasks. Difficulties of response processing seem to account for the largest amount of variance in current service use. When compared with other variables shown to have some predictive power (e.g. social behaviour, symptoms and chronicity), the reaction time measures fare well. Functions derived from discriminant analyses using all the variables correctly classified 90% of those requiring day care and 95% of those requiring night care. Stepwise methods produced lower classification rates but always included reaction-time measures in the predictor set. Patients with continuing cognitive difficulties are likely to remain in more supportive psychiatric settings despite rigorous rehabilitation procedures.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed1990

The relation between life events and social support networks in a clinically depressed cohort.

Life events and supportive social networks are often treated as separate independent variables in their relations with supposed dependent variables such as depressive disorder. It is important therefore to establish that they are independent of one another. One hundred and twenty one men and women attending psychiatric hospitals with depressive disorders were interviewed at the time of their initial contact by a research psychiatrist and a week later by a non-clinical research worker who enquired about life events (LEDS) and about social networks (IMSR). One hundred and eleven patients were successfully followed up in the same manner, typically 4 months later. Social networks were very stable over time. Where they did change, this could not be explained in terms of losses of social contact due to events such as death of a primary group member. The rating of threatening events and difficulties was also unrelated to the quality of social support networks. Institutional rearing in childhood was associated with substantially smaller adult primary networks. It was concluded that over short periods of time, measures based on the LEDS and IMSR are independent, but that major social disruptions may have life long effects on social support networks.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Gender, social support and recovery from depressive disorders: a prospective clinical study.

One hundred and thirty men and women attending psychiatric hospitals with depressive disorders were interviewed at the time of their initial contact. After a mean four month interval, 119 were reassessed in order to test the hypothesis that initial levels of social support predict clinical improvement even when other potential risk factors such as age, sex, diagnosis and severity of depression are controlled. Severity and duration of the episode emerged as the only significant background predictors of recovery. The explained variance in recovery from depression due to social support was equal in men and women, and was not diminished by the background clinical predictors. According to subset analyses however, the aspects of personal relationships and perceived support that predict recovery in men and in women appear to be different. The available multiple regression models of outcome favoured a main effect of social support and provided persuasive if inconclusive evidence for a statistical interaction effect with sex. The implications for further research and for theory are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

The prediction of rehabilitative success after three years. The use of social, symptom and cognitive variables.

A three-year follow-up study of 49 psychiatric patients, representative of those found in long-stay care, tested whether behavioural, symptom and demographic variables as well as response-processing difficulties could predict levels of psychiatric care. The researchers were blind to the criteria for allocating patients to particular forms of care and the staff responsible for care had no access to information collected by the research team. Not only was it possible, using only these few factors, to predict the form of care, but one factor, response processing, was related to whether patients moved to more independent forms of psychiatric care.

Achievement↗
PubMed1976

The peak of the likelihood curve in linkage testing.

It is often suggested that when z-scores are used for linkage estimation, a maximum z-score of 3 (or maximum antilod score, M = 1000) is good evidence for the presence of linkage. It is pointed out that a better formula, applicable if nothing more is known about the loci concerned, would be that the probability that linkage is present is roughly 1--4/Msigma, whereas sigma is the standard error, i.e. square root(2-3 X downward curvature of z curve at peak). A consideration of typical cases suggests that a value M = 1000 would imply something like a 90% chance of linkage. It would seem simpler to use the formula, probability of linkage approximately to 1--H/20, where H is the average height of the antilod curve.

Genetic Linkage↗
PubMed1976

A mapping function for human chromosomes.

The available simple mapping functions are surveyed, and a new mapping function that provides for positive interference within chromosome arms and no interference across the centromere is proposed, together with the corresponding formula for centromeric linkage. This new function is derived by assuming that all chromosome arms except the short arms of acrocentric chromosomes hav an obligatory chiasma, and that the remaining chiasmata are distributed at random; assumptions which may correspond reasonably well to reality. A method for the comparison of the goodness of fit of mapping functions with family data is given. Low levels of interference seem to be indicated, although as yet insufficient human data is available to allow interference to the specified. Interference has a considerable effect on the estimation of map distances between loci from 3-point lod scores as is shown by the linkage group Rh, UMPK, PGM1, Amy, 1qh, Fy, on chromosome 1.

Chromosome Mapping↗
PubMed1976

The relationship between chromatid interference and the mapping function.

A formula for a general mapping function involving only the number of chiasmata between two points on the chromosome and the average excess of four-stranded double exchanges over two-stranded double exchanges is derived. A formula is also given for deriving the proportion of three-stranded double exchanges after any given number of chiasmata; this is related to mapping for linkage with the centromere. It is shown that this proportion tends to a limit of 2/3 after a large number of chiasmata, whether or not chromatid interference is operating.

Chromatids↗
PubMed1975

The use of lod scores for the determination of the order of loci on a chromosome.

A method is given for calculating the probabilities of the possible gene orders for a group of syntenic loci using lod scores calculated for each pair of loci in the group. Applying it, we find the most probable gene order for the five loci on chromosome 1 to be PGM1; Rh; PGD; PEP-C; Fy. However, the probabilities for other orders such that Rh lies between PGM1 and PGD with PEP-C and Fy outside these three are of a similar order of magnitude and no firm conclusions can be given. The probability for other possible orders is negligible.

Chromosome Mapping↗