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Biomedical subjects

J Wancata

Publications and source records attributed to J Wancata.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Psychiatric disorders in gynaecological, surgical and medical departments of general hospitals in an urban and a rural area of Austria.

A total of 728 patients admitted to the medical, gynaecological and surgical departments of one urban and one rural general hospital in Austria were investigated for psychiatric morbidity. Using the Clinical Interview Schedule and its case criteria, the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was found to be highest in medical departments (38.2%), followed by surgical departments (32.5%), and lowest in gynaecological departments (20.7%). Among medical and surgical patients, dementia and substance abuse disorders were the most frequent psychiatric categories, while in gynaecological departments neurotic disorders showed the highest frequency. For the sample as a whole, single status (i.e. unmarried, widowed or divorced), lower social class and rural catchment area of the general hospital predicted a high prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in a logistic regression analysis, while complications of childbirth, pregnancy or the puerperium, and diseases of the skin or the musculoskeletal system showed a negative association with psychiatric illness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

[How reliable are official data on attempted suicides? (based on Vienna 1989 statistics)].

The numbers for suicide attempts in Vienna 1989 from the following sources are compared: Statistical Department of the City of Vienna, hospital system of the City of Vienna, Vienna ambulance service, and Vienna Crisis Intervention Center. There are striking differences in the numbers reported by these institutions. In the data of the Statistical Department for the time period 1983 to 1989 there is a drastic decline of 56.5%, men exceeding women for the first time in decades. These results are not in agreement with the clinical experience of the authors. It is therefore possible that the official statistics underestimate the number of suicide attempts in Vienna. It appears the official data are markedly influenced by changes in the methods of data collection. Therefore, official numbers do not seem to be reliable and cannot be used to compare changes in suicide attempt frequency in the long run either. Possible reasons for the uncertainty of official numbers on suicide attempts are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

[Psychiatric disorders in elderly general hospital patients: incidence and long-term prognosis].

As part of a survey conducted in six general-hospital departments of internal medicine, in the neighbouring cities of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen (total pop. 470,000), 626 patients in the age range 65 to 80 years, all admitted from private addresses, were screened by means of a standardized questionnaire (Cognitive and Affective Screening of the Elderly--'CASE'). All patients whose scores indicated possible mental abnormality, together with a proportion of those having normal scores, were then examined in greater detail, using the Clinical Psychiatric Interview. Following correction, the screening results indicated a frequency of 30.2% for clinically significant psychiatric disturbance, made up of 9.1% with organic mental disorders and 21.1% with functional mental illness only. These rates are considerably higher than could be expected on the basis of a field study of the background population. One year after hospital discharge, the numbers of deaths and of admissions to long-stay care were established for the whole sample, and in addition, individually matched sub-samples of 100 mentally ill and 100 mentally normal patients were reinvestigated. A second follow-up of the matched sub-samples was undertaken after a further interval of 5.6 years on average. The results of follow-up show that 75% of the identified cases ran a chronic or recurring course, while only a small proportion proved to be transient reactions to physical illness or hospital admission. In general, the psychiatrically ill patients had a relatively unfavourable outcome, even after the effects of age, physical disability and other relevant variables had been controlled for. When compared with the matched group of mentally normal patients, they manifested a 43% excess of mortality, and an increase of 157% in the risk for having to be admitted to long-stay care.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1989

[Drug therapy of delusional parasitosis. The importance of differential diagnosis for psychopharmacologic treatment of patients with delusional parasitosis].

In 34 patients suffering from delusional parasitosis the relevance of an accurate differential diagnosis with respect to pharmacological treatment was investigated. Under a psychopharmacological therapy of the delusion's additional psychiatric symptomatology in 17 patients (50%) a full remission and in other 5 patients an improvement of the delusional symptoms was observed. The unexpected high recovery-rate is explained by the fact that all of the patients with additional depression showed a reduction also of the delusional symptomatology after a treatment with antidepressants. In contrast to that, patients with organic brain syndromes underlying the delusions had a significant worse outcome, which seems to be caused by the considerable lack of effective psychopharmacological treatment of such states. The results indicate that an accurate psychiatric differential diagnosis is of great importance for the psychopharmacological therapy of patients suffering from delusional parasitosis. In this context the Viennese decision-tree for delusional syndromes is discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Computerized documentation for lithium outpatients (routine and research data).

To follow up the status and further outcome of patients with recurrent affective and schizoaffective disorders treated in a lithium/prophylactic treatment outpatient (LOP) clinic the authors have developed a documentation system based on a database, which ASCII files. This system should be useful as a basis for optimal treatment and is helpful for special research purposes regarding prophylactic treatment (lithium salts, carbamazepine, antidepressants, etc.). The documentation system consists of two parts, one for routine documentation system consists of two parts, one for routine monitoring including basic data, global course, and routine form with side-effects, and another one for research purposes with documentation of laboratory findings, EEG, and documentation of every cycle which can be added easily. Moreover, with this documentation system it will be possible to compare results from different research centres.

Computers↗
PubMed1986

Approaches to the assessment of schizophrenia in Europe.

All definitions of schizophrenia rely more or less on Kraepelin's hypothesis, Bleuler's theory or Schneider's pragmatic criteria. After a discussion on how these assumptions are referred to in classical and operational diagnostic systems in Europe, the results of a survey of 1983 literature are presented to show what kinds of assessments European workers currently employ. Lastly, guidelines are presented to enable psychopharmacological research to make the best use of the diagnostic systems to suit its purposes: essentially, which system or systems (the polydiagnostic approach for example) one should choose depends upon the symptoms the medication to be tested is supposed to treat, keeping in mind that patient sampling varies according to the system in question.

Europe↗