Insight into illness in patients with mania,mixed mania,bipolar depression and major depression with psychotic features

Dell'Osso L, Pini S, Cassano GB, Mastrocinque C, Seckinger RA, Saettoni M, Papasogli A, Yale SA, Amador XF. Insight into illness in patients with mania, mixed mania, bipolar depression and major depression with psychotic features. Bipolar Disord 2002: 4: 315–322. © Blackwell Munksgaard 2002 Background: Poor insight into illness is a common feature of bipolar disorder and one that is associated with poor clinical outcome. Empirical studies of illness awareness in this population are relatively scarce with the majority of studies being published over the previous decade. The study reported here sought to replicate previous report findings that bipolar patients frequently show high levels of poor insight into having an illness. We also wanted to examine whether group differences in insight exist among bipolar manic, mixed and unipolar depressed patients with psychotic features. Methods: A cohort of 147 inpatients with DSM‐III‐R bipolar disorder and 30 with unipolar depression with psychotic features, were evaluated in the week prior to discharge using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐III‐R‐Patient Edition (SCID‐P), the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Scale to assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD). Results: Insight into specific aspects of the illness was related to the polarity of mood episode: patients with mania showed significantly poorer insight compared with those with mixed mania, bipolar depression and unipolar depression. A linear regression analysis using SUMD score as the dependent variable and symptoms of mania as the independent variable found that specific manic symptoms did not account for level of insight. Similar results were obtained when the mean insight scores of patients with and without grandiosity were contrasted. Conclusions: We hypothesize that the lack of association between level of insight and total number of manic symptoms or with specific manic symptoms may be related to the persistence of subsyndromal symptoms in patients remitting from a manic episode.     

Schizoaffective mania reconsidered

Schizoaffective mania refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by mixtures of schizophrenic and manic (or bipolar) symptoms. Of the proposed diagnostic criteria, the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) most clearly distinguish relevant subgroups. Family, clinical, and treatment studies suggest that the RDC's mainly affective subtype of schizoaffective mania is a variant of psychotic bipolar disorder. Limited available data suggest that the mainly schizophrenic subtype has a poorer prognosis and includes cases more closely related to schizophrenia. Schizoaffective mania also overlaps with proposed categories such as reactive and cycloid psychosis. It is premature to assume that all schizoaffective manic disorder represents a bipolar variant. Further studies that differentiate patients according to subtype, drug response, and course are needed.     

Symptômes psychotiques dans l’épisode maniaque. Un regard de psychiatre libéral

Private practice requires particular vigilance with regard to signs of mood instability in patients with bipolar disorders, in particular the manic aspect, because of the risk of disruption in care. Between the episodes, psychotic symptoms can be sequels or prodroms and, if so, often stereotyped from one episode to the next. During the manic episode, mood-congruent symptoms (grandiosity, possessing superpowers, having a special relationship with God or with celebrities) are most common, but mood-incongruent symptoms (delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, first-rank Schneiderian symptoms) are not uncommon. In the absence of delusions or hallucinations, the clinician must be alert to a decline in insight, or when the patient shows symptoms of formal thought disturbances. For certain classical authors, mania was, by itself, a psychotic experience. The relationship between the severity of mania and the existence of psychotic symptoms is strong, but not exclusive. Some patients that have not completely stopped their treatment can have moderate symptoms of mania, albeit with some psychotic symptoms. Congruent and non-congruent psychotic symptoms may persist beyond the manic episode, raising the question of schizoaffective (SA) disorder when elements of a diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia are met. SA is a disputed diagnostic category, whose stability over time is unsatisfactory. The management of psychotic symptoms with mania is difficult in private practice: a clinical case of a female bipolar patient with erotomania before and during manic episodes illustrates the difficulties of management when the patient's insight fluctuates. The side-effects of treatments, a hypomanic switch, induced by an antidepressant despite two mood stabilizers (lithium, valproate), followed by a period of mood instability and a lack of medical coordination had contributed to an interruption in care. Statistical multivariate analyses and the grouping of symptoms and patients together with factor and network analyses suggest a partial independence of psychotic symptoms from other manic symptoms and, in cluster analyses, the likelihood of a subgroup of manic patients with psychotic symptoms.     

Schizoaffective disorder and affective disorders with mood-incongruent psychotic features: keep separate or combine? Evidence from a family study.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated whether the distinction between schizoaffective disorder and affective disorders with mood-incongruent psychotic features as described in DSM-III-R is reflected by aggregation of schizophrenia in the families of probands with the former disorder and aggregation of affective disorders mainly among the relatives of probands with the latter type of disorders. METHOD: The probands were 118 inpatients with definite lifetime diagnoses of DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder or a major mood disorder with incongruent psychotic features according to structured clinical interviews. Diagnostic information on 475 of the probands' first-degree relatives was gathered through direct interviews (with 80% of the living first-degree relatives) or the family history approach. The rates of affective and psychotic disorders among these relatives were then compared with those among the relatives of a comparison group of 109 interviewed individuals from the general population who were matched on sociodemographic factors to the inpatient probands. RESULTS: With regard to the familial aggregation of schizophrenia, the DSM-III-R distinction emerged as valid. However, the risk of unipolar affective disorders was enhanced in the families of all of the subgroups of patients studied. The unipolar/bipolar distinction in both DSM-III-R diagnostic groups was reflected by distinct patterns of bipolar disorders in the relatives. CONCLUSIONS: The results partly support the DSM-III-R dichotomy of schizoaffective disorder and affective disorders with mood-incongruent psychotic features. Although the differences between these two diagnostic groups were significant, the magnitude of the differences remained relatively modest.     

A family study of DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder, depressive type, compared with schizophrenia and psychotic and nonpsychotic major depression

OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity of DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder, the authors explored the morbid risks for schizophrenia and major affective disorders in the first-degree relatives of patients with schizoaffective disorder and relevant other diagnoses. METHOD: In addition to patients with DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder, depressive type (N = 21), the probands included patients with mood-incongruent psychotic depression (N = 22), mood-congruent psychotic depression (N = 19), nonpsychotic depression (N = 27), or schizophrenia (N = 28) and normal subjects (N = 18). The patients were consecutively recruited from the outpatient facilities of a university psychiatry department; the normal subjects were students and nurses. All probands were directly interviewed, with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia--Lifetime Version (SADS-L), by a psychiatrist blind to information about relatives. Consenting relatives were directly interviewed, with the SADS-L, by two psychiatrists blind to the probands' diagnoses. The direct interview was supplemented--or replaced, when an interview was not possible (24%)--by family history data from all available sources. Morbid risks in relatives were calculated according to the Weinberg method. RESULTS: The relatives of the schizoaffective patients had almost the same risk for schizophrenia as the relatives of the schizophrenic patients. In the relatives of the patients mood-incongruent psychotic depression, the morbid risk for major affective disorders was about one-half that of the relatives of the patients with mood-congruent psychotic depression and one-third that of the relatives of the patients with nonpsychotic depression, but these differences did not reach statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder is close to schizophrenia and largely corresponds to mainly schizophrenic schizoaffective disorder in the Research Diagnostic Criteria, whereas DSM-III-R mood-incongruent psychotic depression is probably quite heterogeneous and should be studied further.     

Longitudinal outcome and medication noncompliance among manic patients with and without mood-incongruent psychotic features.

The prognostic utility of mood-incongruent psychotic features was examined in a sample of 23 hospitalized manic patients. Patients were initially subdivided according to whether they met Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) for schizoaffective, mainly affective (mood-incongruent) manic disorder (SAM; N = 11) or RDC primary manic (mood-congruent or nonpsychotic) manic disorder (PM; N = 12). Patients were then followed over a 9-month posthospitalization period and rated every 3 months for relapse status, symptom severity, social adjustment, and medication noncompliance. Patients with SAM and PM did not differ at follow-up on rates or timing of manic or depressive relapses or on cycling of symptoms of mood disorder. However, at follow-up, SAM patients had more severe positive and negative psychotic symptoms and poorer social adjustment, and were less medically compliant than PM patients. Results are consistent with the view that mania with mood-incongruent psychotic features is a poor-prognosis subtype of bipolar disorder.     

Relationships between insight and medication adherence in subjects with psychosis

BACKGROUND: Poor medication adherence in subjects with psychosis has a high prevalence and a negative impact on clinical outcome. Several studies have reported that a poor level of insight was a strong predictor of poor medi-cation adherence. However, few studies have investigated whether insight was associated with medication adherence, independently from other clinical and treatment characteristics. OBJECTIVE: To explore the link between insight and medi-cation adherence in subjects with psychosis, and to assess the impact of potential confounding factors on this association. METHOD: Subjects included in the study were patients aged 60 or less, consecutively admitted in a psychiatric ward, and presenting with at least one psychotic symptom (delusion or hallucination). Medication adherence was assessed using: 1) history of total discontinuation of treatment against medical advice over the 2 weeks before admission; 2) the 7-point rating scale developed by Kemp et al.; 3) the self-report questionnaire Drug Attitude Inventory (DAI). The Scale to assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD) was used to measure level of insight. Assessment of symptoms was performed using the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS), the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), and the Calgary Depression Scale (CDS). DSM IV diagnoses were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview for Psychosis (DIP). The associations between level of insight (SUMD scores) and the three measures of medication adherence were explored using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney and Spearman's tests. Logistic regression models giving Odds Ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were used to examine the impact of potential confounding variables on the associations between level of insight and medication adherence. RESULTS: 42 patients presenting with schizophrenia broadly defined (n=25) or psychotic mood disorder (n=17) were assessed. Significant associations were found between higher SUMD scores (ie poorer insight) and discontinuation of treatment before admission (z=- 2.6, p=0.009), poor medication adherence rated using the Kemp et al.'s scale (r=- 0.64; p=0.0001), and negative perception of treatment assessed using the DAI (r=- 0.405; p=0.009). The Kemp'scale score and the DAI score were categorised into poor vs. good according to the median for logistic regression analyses. Subjects were 1.7 times more likely (OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.1-2.5, p=0.01) to have discontinued their treatment, 1.9 times more likely (OR=1.9, 95% CI 1.3-2.8), p=0.0003) to have poor medication adherence rated with the Kemp's scale, and 1.8 times (OR=1.8, 95% CI 1.2-2.6, p=0.005) more likely to have a negative perception of the treatment for one point increase at the SUMD score (ie lower level of insight). The associations between SUMD score and the three measures of medication adherence were not modified after adjustment for demographic characteristics (age, gender, educational level, occupational status, marital status) and categorical diagnosis (schizophrenia broadly defined vs. psychotic mood disorder), severity of symptoms (SANS, SAPS, CDS scores), characteristics of the psychotropic treatment, diagnosis of substance or alcohol use disorder, age at onset, and number of previous admissions. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrates that medication adherence is associated with the level of insight, independently from other patient's demographic and clinical characteristics. The association between low level of insight and poor medication adherence should be confirmed using prospective studies carried out in ambulatory patients. These findings suggest that psycho-educational programs aimed at improving insight should be developed in order to improve medication adherence.     

Outcome of schizoaffective disorder at two long-term follow-ups: comparisons with outcome of schizophrenia and affective disorders

OBJECTIVE: This research assessed whether the outcome of schizoaffective disorder is more similar to that of schizophrenia or that of affective disorders. METHOD: The authors conducted a prospective follow-up study of 101 schizoaffective, schizophrenic, bipolar manic, and depressed patients assessed at three times: during hospitalization and 2 and 4-5 years later. The follow-up test battery involved detailed assessment of social functioning, work performance, symptoms, posthospital treatment, and rehospitalization. RESULTS: Outcome for schizoaffective patients 4-5 years after hospitalization differed significantly from that for patients with unipolar depression. However, the differences between schizoaffective and bipolar manic patients were more equivocal. Unlike the patients with bipolar disorder, only a limited number of patients with schizoaffective disorder showed complete recovery in all areas throughout the year preceding the 2-year follow-up and the year preceding the 4- to 5-year follow-up. The differences in outcome between schizoaffective and schizophrenic patients were also mixed. These two groups showed some similarities in outcome, but there were fewer schizoaffective than schizophrenic patients with uniformly poor outcome in all areas. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, schizoaffective patients showed some similarities to both schizophrenic and bipolar manic patients. Schizoaffective patients had somewhat better overall posthospital functioning than patients with schizophrenia, somewhat poorer functioning than bipolar manic patients, and significantly poorer functioning than patients with unipolar depression. The data suggest that when mood-incongruent, schizophrenic-like psychotic symptoms are present in the acute phase, they predict considerable difficulty in outcome, even when affective syndromes are also present, as in schizoaffective disorder. It is likely that schizoaffective disorder is not just a simple variety of affective disorder.     

Clinical predictors of acute response with quetiapine in psychotic mood disorders

BACKGROUND: In controlled studies of patients with schizophrenia, the atypical antipsychotic quetiapine, 300 mg/day, has been shown to be as effective in the treatment of positive and negative symptoms as haloperidol. However, little is known about the efficacy of quetiapine in patients with psychotic mood disorders. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of quetiapine in the treatment of psychotic mood disorders in comparison with nonaffective psychotic disorders and identify clinical factors associated with quetiapine response. METHOD: In a naturalistic setting, by reviewing medical records, we assessed response to quetiapine and factors associated with response to quetiapine in 145 consecutive patients newly treated with the drug at a nonprofit academic psychiatric hospital. These patients had received a discharge diagnosis of bipolar disorder (manic, mixed, or depressive type), major depression with psychotic features, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder (bipolar or depressive type), delusional disorder, or psychosis not otherwise specified (NOS) according to DSM-IV criteria. RESULTS: Patients with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, manic, mixed, or depressed and schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type displayed higher response rates (> 74%) compared with patients with schizophrenia. However, this finding did not achieve statistical significance. A diagnosis of major depression with psychotic features (p = .02) and longer duration of illness (p = .03) were associated with less chance of responding. CONCLUSION: Quetiapine may be a useful alternative or adjunctive treatment for patients with bipolar and schizoaffective disorders.     

Insight into illness in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and mood disorders with psychotic features

OBJECTIVE: Deficits in insight have been found in one study to be more common and severe in patients with schizophrenia than in patients with schizoaffective and major depression with and without psychosis but not more severe than they are in patients with bipolar disorder. The goals of this study were to replicate this finding independently and to clarify whether patients with schizophrenia differ from patients with bipolar disorder in a larger study group. METHOD: Using the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder, the authors evaluated 29 inpatients with schizophrenia, 24 with schizoaffective disorder, and 183 with mood disorders with psychotic features (153 with bipolar disorder and 30 with unipolar depression). RESULTS: Patients with schizophrenia had poorer insight than patients with schizoaffective disorder and patients with psychotic unipolar depression but did not differ from patients with bipolar disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of significant differences between patients with schizophrenia and patients with bipolar disorder was not a result of low statistical power. This replication and more detailed examination of diagnostic group differences in insight have clinical, theoretical, and nosological implications.     

Thought disorder. A function of schizophrenia, mania, or psychosis?

Does thought disorder emerge solely as a function of psychosis, or is it a function of diagnosis? The present research investigated whether thought disorder is more frequent in specific diagnostic groups, such as schizophrenia and mania, than in other types of psychotic disorders. The frequency and severity of positive thought disorder was assessed in 324 Research Diagnostic Criteria and DSM-III schizophrenics, manics, other psychotic patients, and nonpsychotic patients, and a normal comparison group. Fifty-seven percent of the sample were first hospital admissions. Patients were tested at the acute phase of their disorder, within the first 2 weeks of hospitalization, with three cognitive tests. Scores from these three tests were scaled to obtain a composite index of the severity of positive thought disorder. Diagnostic factors were more salient to the severity of disordered thinking than was psychosis. Thought disorder was significantly more frequent in schizophrenia and mania than in other psychotic disorders (p less than .05). The frequency of patients with severe thought disorder was reduced as one moved down the hierarchy of manic, schizophrenic, schizoaffective, and depressed psychotic disturbances (p less than .001). Rather surprisingly, the current research suggests that nonpsychotic manic patients may be as thought disordered as psychotic manic patients at acute phases of disturbance. This would indicate that the presence of positive thought disorder in mania is not primarily a function of most of these patients' being psychotic at the acute phase of disturbance. Thought disorder was not simply a function of psychosis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Clinical characteristics of mania, mixed mania, and bipolar depression with psychotic features

This study investigated a series of clinical characteristics, including the level of insight into illness and axis I comorbidity, in 125 patients with bipolar disorder with psychotic features categorized in three groups: 62 patients with mania, 28 patients with mixed mania, and 35 patients with depression. All patients were hospitalized and were assessed in the week preceding discharge. The three groups did not differ in the severity of psychopathology as assessed by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). The mania group had a lower level of insight into the social consequences of illness than the other two groups, and compared with the group with depression, they had a lower level of insight of poor attention and of poor social judgment. As to axis I comorbidity, obsessive-compulsive disorder was found to be significantly more frequent in depression than in mania. Patients with depression more frequently reported a history of suicidality than those with mania, whereas they did not significantly differ from patients with mixed mania. Our results suggest that mixed mania as assessed at the time of the patient's discharge differs from mania and from depression with respect to a limited number of features among those examined. However, the overall level of insight into illness significantly discriminated mixed mania from mania, but not from depression.     

Do maternal psychotic symptoms predict offspring's psychotic disorder? Findings from the Helsinki High-Risk Study

The Helsinki High-Risk (HR) Study is a follow-up study of 179 offspring born to mothers with DSM-IV-TR diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, other schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and affective psychoses. Mothers comprised all female patients born between 1916 and 1948 who had been treated with hospital diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizophreniform, or schizoaffective psychoses in any mental hospital in the city of Helsinki up to 1974, and who had given birth in Helsinki between 1960 and 1964. In this report we conducted a principal factor analysis of maternal symptoms using 12 items of the Major Symptoms of Schizophrenia Scale (MSSS), the global ratings of anhedonia-asociality and avolition-apathy from the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), and the global rating of bizarre behavior from the Scale for the Assessment of Positive symptoms (SAPS), and examined whether the factor scores predicted the offspring's morbidity from psychotic disorders. We found a four-factor solution (negative, positive, catatonic, and affective symptom factors). High maternal positive symptom factor score significantly predicted decreased morbidity from schizophrenia among offspring (P=0.0098). Our result suggests that maternal positive symptoms are less harmful to the child than other maternal psychotic symptoms, and supports the view that positive symptoms are non-specific symptoms of psychosis rather than core features of schizophrenia.     

Prevalence and description of psychotic features in bipolar mania

Psychotic symptoms are common in both the manic and depressive phases of bipolar disorder. More than half of patients with bipolar disorder will experience psychotic symptoms in their lifetime. Grandiose delusions are the most common type of psychotic symptom, but any kind of psychotic symptom, including thought disorder, hallucinations, mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms, and catatonia can present as part of a manic episode. Psychotic symptoms suggest poor prognosis when they occur in the absence of affective symptoms. However, psychotic symptoms can mask affective symptoms and make the distinction between manic-depressive illness and other psychiatric disorders difficult, especially in minorities. Careful assessment of prior psychiatric history, family history, and treatment response can aid in the differentiation of affective disorders with psychotic features from psychotic disorders.     

Insight in seasonal affective disorder

Lack of insight complicates the evaluation and treatment of patients with psychotic and affective disorders. No studies of insight in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) have been reported. Thirty patients with SAD diagnosed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R but no other axis I conditions were treated short-term with light-therapy. Insight was measured with the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD) as modified by the authors to assess the self-report of insight into depressive symptoms. Increasing scores (1 to 5) indicated increasing unawareness of illness (i.e., less insight). SAD patients displayed a moderate amount of insight when depressed (mean SUMD score, 2.5). When recovered, they showed no significant change in insight into past depressive symptoms (mean SUMD score, 2.8). Greater insight into current depressive symptoms correlated with more depressive symptoms on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score ([HRSD] r = .35, P < .05). In conclusion, SAD patients possess a moderate amount of insight into depressive symptoms that does not change after recovery, a result in agreement with studies of insight in psychosis and mania. Further, in SAD, increased severity of illness may be associated with increased insight into depressive symptoms, consistent with the hypothesis of depressive realism.     

Efficacy and safety of risperidone in the treatment of schizoaffective disorder: initial results from a large, multicenter surveillance study. Group for the Study of Risperidone in Affective Disorders (GSRAD)

BACKGROUND: An adequate therapy for psychotic disorders needs to be effective against mood as well as psychotic symptoms. Analyses of data from clinical trials of risperidone in schizophrenia and small open-label studies in mania suggest that risperidone may have this broad efficacy profile. We present data on a 6-week trial of risperidone for the treatment of schizoaffective disorder that was part of a larger, 6-month surveillance study of patients with affective disorders. METHOD: One hundred two patients suffering from schizoaffective disorder (DSM-IV or ICD-10) entered the trial. Inclusion criteria consisted of a current DSM-IV diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type; DSM-IV manic or mixed psychotic episode; and a Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) score > 7 for a mixed episode (> 20 for a manic episode). Assessments included the YMRS, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D), the 4-item Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scale, and the UKU Side Effect Rating Scale subscale for neurologic side effects. For patients entering the study, open-label risperidone therapy was added to their existing regimens of mood-stabilizing treatments. Other antipsychotic drugs were not allowed. RESULTS: Ninety-five patients completed the 6-week trial. At week 6, the mean +/- SD dose of risperidone was 4.7+/-2.5 mg/day. The mean scores on the assessment scales at baseline and week 6 (unless otherwise stated) were as follows: YMRS, 22.7 and 4.7, an improvement of 18.0 points (p < .0001); PANSS (at baseline and week 4), 74.1 and 54.2, an improvement of 19.9 points (p < .0001); HAM-D, 14.0 and 7.4, an improvement of 6.6 points (p < .0001); CGI (at baseline and week 4), 2.6 and 1.7, an improvement of 0.9 points (p < .0001). At week 4, most patients had shown improvement in symptom severity, and 9.3% were completely symptom-free. There were no statistically significant differences between baseline and week 4 in the severity of extrapyramidal symptoms as measured by the UKU. Risperidone was well tolerated; side effects were few and generally mild. CONCLUSION: The results to date with risperidone indicate that it may have both antipsychotic and mood-stabilizing properties. Despite the limitations of the open-label design, the results indicate that risperidone is a safe and effective therapy in combination with mood-stabilizers for the treatment of patients with manic, hypomanic, and depressive symptoms of mixed episodes in schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.     

A 10-year retrospective study of inpatient adolescents with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and substance use

The comorbidity of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and substance use is a major psychiatric concern that is associated with aggressive and suicidal behavior. This study investigated the clinical correlates and characterizes adolescent psychotic inpatients with and without comorbid substance use. We performed a retrospective study of 188 adolescent inpatients who were admitted between the years 1994 and 2004 to the inpatient unit of Geha Mental Health Center and who were diagnosed as suffering from either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The substance-using psychotic inpatients were found to have more relatives with substance-related disorders, fewer comorbid anxiety disorders, lower scores on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and Hamilton Scale for Depression, higher scores on the Overt Aggression Scale, and they were more suicidal than the nonsubstance using inpatients. Adolescent inpatients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective who use substances possess differential clinical characteristics and particular correlates that justify adopting a specific approach to this high-risk clinical subgroup.     

Clozapine in the treatment of psychotic mood disorders, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: Although growing research indicates that the atypical antipsychotic agent clozapine is effective in patients with schizophrenia, little is known about the efficacy of clozapine in patients with schizoaffective disorder or psychotic mood disorders. The purpose of this study was to assess whether or not clozapine is effective in some patients with schizoaffective disorder or psychotic mood disorders. METHOD: By surveying treating clinicians and chart data, we assessed treatment response in 85 consecutive patients, including 39 with schizophrenia, 25 with schizoaffective disorder, and 14 with bipolar disorder with psychotic features, who received clozapine for at least 6 weeks at our center. RESULTS: All patients were either inadequately responsive to or unable to tolerate standard somatic therapies. Compared to patients with schizophrenia, patients with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder with psychotic features displayed significantly higher response rates to clozapine. CONCLUSION: Clozapine may be a useful drug in the treatment of patients with schizoaffective disorder or psychotic mood disorders who are treatment resistant or intolerant of side effects.     

Early onset psychotic disorders: Diagnostic stability and clinical characteristics

Objectives: To examine the clinical features and diagnostic stability of early-onset psychotic disorders. Methods: These data are from a two-year longitudinal prospective study of youth with psychotic disorders. Standardized diagnostic assessments are administered at baseline and at one and two-year's follow-up. Results: Fifty-one subjects have been recruited to date; 18 with schizophrenia, 14 with bipolar disorder, 7 with schizoaffective disorder, 1 with an organic psychosis, and 11 subjects whose symptoms where either questionable and/or did not meet diagnostic criteria for another disorder (classified as psychosis nos). Thirty-nine subjects were reassessed at year one, twenty-four at year two. Three subjects have been lost to follow-up. The study diagnosis was the same as the first onset diagnosis (prior to entering the study) in 50 % of subjects. Over the two-year period of the study, the diagnosis remained unchanged in over 90 % of subjects. Subjects with schizophrenia had higher ratings of premorbid impairment, including social withdrawal and dysfunctional peer relationships, than those with bipolar disorder. At the one-year follow-up, subjects with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder had significantly higher rates of delusions, bizarre behavior, and negative symptoms than those with bipolar disorder. Subjects with bipolar disorder tended to have cyclical courses, whereas those with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were often chronically impaired. Subjects with psychosis nos had higher rates of dissociative symptoms and histories of child maltreatment. Conclusions: Early-onset psychotic disorders can be reliably diagnosed using standardized assessments and are stable over a two-year period. Compared to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia is associated with a poorer premorbid history, and persistent positive and negative symptoms.