the Long Term Evolution of Periodical Affective Disorders, with and without Psychotic Symptoms

Abstract

In the Psychiatric Clinic in Timisoara, we began a study of the long term evolution (over 10 years) on two comparative groups of patients with affective disorders, with and without incongruent psychotic symptoms. We compared one group of 20 bipolar patients with psychotic symptoms with another group of 20 bipolars without psychotic symptoms. the same was done with two groups of 20 patients with monopolar depression. We did not include the cases with more than one schizoaffective episode, which were studied separately. We came to the conclusion that affective disorders associated with incongruent psychosis, had an earlier onset, a worse prognosis and other genetic and temperamental characteristics, than the ones without psychotic symptoms. Also the cases with schizoaffective disorder (schizo-bipolar and schizo-depressive) we have studied had an earlier onset and a bad prognosis.