Differential diagnosis of chronic depressive disorders

This article has traced the development of the diagnostic nomenclature for the chronic affective disorders during the past four decades. Much has been accomplished. In fact, our current differential diagnostic capabilities have surpassed our knowledge of how to treat the chronic depressions. It is hoped that in the next decade there will be notable increases in the treatment efficacy literature of the chronic mild depressions. Next, we suggest that practitioners assist academic investigators in determining the best way to treat the chronic depressions. To realize this goal, clinicians must begin to view themselves as part-time researchers. Several technological procedures have been described to facilitate this undertaking. We suggest that the assumption of such a research practitioner role will, in the long run, improve the quality of patient care.

One-year prospective replication study of an untreated sample of community dysthymia subjects

This study replicates an earlier naturalistic-prospective investigation of nontreatment, community DSM-III-R dysthymia subjects. Major goals were to determine spontaneous remission rates and monitor the stability of psychosocial functioning levels over time. Twenty-four dysthymia subjects were followed for 1 year. Three remissions (13%) were diagnosed at the final interview. At a 4-year diagnostic follow-up contact with the remitters only, one remitter had relapsed and two remained in remission. Subjects were monitored for depressive symptom intensity, personality functioning, general medical distress, cognitive functioning, coping stylistics, interpersonal functioning, quality of their social support resources, and general family functioning. Stable levels of psychosocial functioning were maintained across all measures over the 1-year period. Current psychometric findings confirm the conclusions of the earlier nontreatment prospective study that dysthymia is a chronic mood disorder with stable psychosocial features and is unlikely to remit spontaneously over time.

Comparison of a community dysthymia sample at screening with a matched group of nondepressed community controls

The primary goal of the study was to compare the psychosocial functioning of an untreated, community sample of DSM-III-R dysthymia subjects (N = 24) at screening to that of a matched sample of community nondepressed volunteers (N = 18) with no lifetime or current history of axis I disorders. Subjects were compared across a number of psychosocial indices. The dysthymics were found to be less sociable (introversion) and clinically high on neuroticism-instability, external in regard to their causal attributions, less stable for positive uncontrollable events and more stable and global for negative uncontrollable events, relying more on coping strategies such as wishful thinking and self-blame, more interpersonally submissive and hostile, and to have a poorer social support-resource network. In addition, the dysthymics reported more family dysfunction and a higher rate of negative major life events.

Mental illness topics in popular periodicals

Recent emphases on educating the general public about mental illness have included the encouragement of the publication of plainly written, lay-oriented information about mental disorders and their treatment in popular periodicals. To examine the extent to which coverage of mental health topics in popular magazines is being accomplished, the present study looked at the numbers and types of articles related to mental health indexed in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and changes in indexed articles between 1965 and 1988. The number of articles and number of headings related to mental illness and treatment have increased significantly since 1965, particularly those describing specific disorders. In addition, many of the changes in headings used by the Readers' Guide are consistent with changes in the field (e.g., the introduction of new diagnostic categories) and with desired changes in terminology (e.g., using less stigmatizing terms). These general findings are encouraging for mental health education advocates, although more detailed analysis of the content of articles is needed to be sure that the increased periodical information available to the public is accurate and up-to-date.

Wide-field filter camera

A rugged camera with a 32 degrees field has been constructed and used to detect faint nebulosity through narrow-band interference filters. The optimum bandwidth is determined. Also the merits of using a phosphor output image tube have been examined quantitatively, and a method of cooling the tube has been derived and investigated both experimentally and numerically.