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T E Gift

Publications and source records attributed to T E Gift.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Therapeutic milieu and clinical improvement.

While studies of the interpersonal environment of psychiatric hospitals have compared one ward or unit with another, there are no reports relating a patient's perception of a treatment unit to his clinical coruse on the unit. In this study conducted on an acute psychiatric ward of a general hospital, the Community Oriented Program Environment Scale (COPES) of Rudolph Moos was used as a measure of the patient's conception of an ideal ward and the patient's perception of the actual ward. The Nurses Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation (NOSIE) was used to rate psychopathology. Patient's perceptions of the actual ward, of an ideal ward, and differences between actual and ideal were not related to initial pathology or improvement over time. Research and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Female↗
PubMed1982

First-admission psychiatric ward milieu: treatment process and outcome.

A two-year, prospective study of 123 first-admission patients examined the impact of different inpatient treatment decision-making styles on patient outcome on a therapeutic community ward and a medically oriented psychiatric ward. Ward philosophy, programmatic and administrative structure, and ward atmosphere defined the ward milieus. Data on length of stay and the use of various therapeutic modalities provided comparisons of treatment process. Standardized ratings of psychopathologic condition and levels of function, readmissions, and illness attitudes were used to assess two-year outcomes. The major finding was the absence of outcome differences despite longer lengths of stay on the therapeutic community ward. Hence, differences in ward decision-making style may not influence outcome, but may affect the process of care among diagnostically heterogeneous, first-admission patients treated in a university setting.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Sex differences in age at first hospital admission for schizophrenia: fact or artifact?

Reports that men develop schizophrenia earlier than women could be a clue to major factors in the pathological processes of schizophrenia or they could be diagnostic artifacts. The authors evaluated the effect of alternative diagnostic systems on age at first admission for schizophrenia, depression, and personality disorder. They found that the age-sex disproportion is specific to schizophrenia and occurs irrespective of the diagnostic system. An unexpected relationship between diagnostic system and sex differences in the rate of schizophrenia obtained, however: the broadest and narrowest sets of criteria yielded approximately equal proportions of females and males, but intermediate systems yielded a significantly greater proportion of males than females.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Established chronicity of psychotic symptoms in first-admission schizophrenic patients.

The course of schizophrenia before a patient's first admission is important theoretically, prognostically, and from a preventive psychiatric perspective. However, there is little systematically collected information on this topic. In this evaluation of a representative sample of first-admission schizophrenic patients, there was a wide variation in chronicity of psychotic symptoms before admission, with 20% of the patients having been symptomatic for more than 2 years and 28% for less than 1 week. Delusions of grandeur, delusions of reference, and suspiciousness were more common in the more chronic patients than in the most acute patients; symptoms of withdrawal and retardation showed the opposite pattern. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for prognosis, prevention, and theory.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1980

The severity of psychiatric disorder.

Evaluating the severity of psychiatric illness is important, but it involves many implicit hypotheses and models. To investigate empirically characteristics entering into judgments of severity, a representative sample of 217 patients hospitalized for the first time for functional psychiatric illness was studied. Results indicated that psychotic symptoms and bizarre disturbed behavior were more associated with severity than were depression, anxiety, and other nonpsychotic symptoms. There was a strong relationship between severity and psychotic/nonpsychotic dichotomy, but relatively little relationship between severity and diagnostic categories. Severity was also related to certain measures of chronicity and social function.

Humans↗
PubMed1980

Schizophrenia: affect and outcome.

Considerable data suggest that schizophrenic patients with affective symptoms have a more favorable outcome than other schizophrenic patients. This may indicate that such patients are more validly regarded as having either an affective disorder or a schizoaffective psychosis. Studies of this issue have suffered from significant methodologic problems, including inappropriate sampling, unsystematic collection of symptom data, unreliable diagnostic procedures, and restricted outcome assessment. The present study, designed to surmount these methodologic difficulties, indicates that while levels of psychotic symptoms in schizophrenic patients correlate with poor outcome, affective symptoms have little prognostic power.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

The failure to detect low IQ in psychiatric assessment.

The authors assessed the IQs of 188 hospitalized psychiatric patients and found that 27 (14.4%) had IQs of 85 or less. However, the psychiatric records of 22 of the patients with low IQs showed that only 5 contained any mention of level of intellectual functioning. These findings suggest that a variable of major importance for diagnosis and treatment planning is often ignored.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Choosing an approach for diagnosing schizophrenia.

In recent years, many competing concepts of schizophrenia have been described, each with some evidence to support its value. Even more recently, specific evaluation methods and diagnostic criteria have been developed so that each of these concepts can be reliably diagnosed. Because of these advances, it is important for the clinician and investigator working with schizophrenics to recognize the way in which the various concepts are reflected in the several reliable approaches now available for diagnosis and to be able to choose a method of diagnosis that is most likely to be useful. We describe the competing conceptualizations and the related diagnostic approaches that have been developed, and then outline the differences and similarities and advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. An orientation toward using these approaches for diagnosing schizophrenia is suggested that permits employing several approaches simultaneously to provide the greatest chance for determining important relationships among diagnostic, clinical, and research variables.

Delusions↗