Delineation of acute and transient psychotic disorders in a developing country setting.
BACKGROUND
We examined whether acute transient psychoses can be distinguished from schizophrenia and the affective disorders.


METHODS
We studied 46 cases of nonaffective acute psychosis in the Chandigarh Acute Psychosis Study. With respect to separation from schizophrenia, we examined the distribution of duration of the episode. With respect to separation from affective disorders, we assessed the frequency of affective symptoms.


RESULTS
Duration was bimodal, suggesting the presence of two distinct conditions of short and long duration. Affective symptoms were minimal, suggesting that these were not atypical affective syndromes.


CONCLUSIONS
Acute transient psychoses conform neither with schizophrenia of brief duration nor with atypical affective psychosis, and thus require separate classification as proposed in the ICD-10.
Susser
E
E
Columbia University, N.Y., USA.
Varma
V K
VK
Malhotra
S
S
Conover
S
S
Amador
X F
XF
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003906:Developing Countries; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology