Epidemiology of First-episode Psychosis: Illustrating the Challenges Across Diagnostic Boundaries in a Retrospective Study

Abstract

Introduction

The epidemiology of first-episode psychosis (FEP) is poorly understood because of the paucity of systematic studies.

Objectives and Aims

To investigate the incidence and range of diagnostic groups in patients with FEP in the county of Vrancea from Romania and specifically from the Psychiatry Department of the Focsani County General Hospital, in 2011.

Methods

This study is in fact a part of a larger ongoing study of 10 years.

We have studied F23 – Brief psychotic disorder as discharge diagnosis (ICD-10), and we tried to the find incidence of FEP.

Results

From the total number of 1408 patient hospitalized in 2011, the diagnosis of F23 was as follows: F23.0=31, F23.1=16, F23.2=9, F23.3=5, F23.4-F23.7=0, F23.8=9, F23.9=23, in total 93.

From that we have excluded the ones with toxic or degenerative (I.e. Dementia) disorders, and in the end we have reached 31 patients, with diagnosis at the end of our study of Acute and transient psychotic disorder (14), Schizophrenia (13), 2 Bipolars, one Schizoaffective Disorder and one Major Depression.

Conclusion

According to the results of the last census in Romania, our county has 340.310 individuals from which about 21.000 are living in other countries. The number of persons present at this census was of about 320.000.

This means that the incidence in our study was of 9.6875 at 100.000 individuals.

In the previous studies, the reported incidence of FPE was between 10 and 30 at 100.000 individuals, but the ones that go towards 30 were, in the end, mostly affective disorders.