Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T04:25:26.610Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Diagnostic concordance in functional psychosis revisited: a study of inter-relationships between alternative concepts of psychotic disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Patrick D. McGorry*
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Bruce S. Singh
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Sheryl Connell
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Dean McKenzie
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Raphael J. Van Riel
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
David L. Copolov
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr P. D. McGorry, NH & MRC Schizophrenia Research Unit, Royal Park Hospital, Private Bag 3, parkville, victoria 3052, Australia.

Synopsis

More than a decade ago, a series of retrospective studies examined the concordance between proliferating definitions of severe psychiatric disorder. The European response has been a polydiagnostic one, which has attempted to maintain interest in a broad range of psychiatric phenomena in the psychoses. In North America a more convergent approach has emerged, resulting in a series of operational definitions evolving from one another, and a correspondingly limited capacity to allow alternative perspectives to co-exist. The present study uses a prospective design as well as recent improvements in the clinical validity of psychopathology assessment to re-evaluate the relationships between competing concepts of psychotic illness in a broad sample (N = 176) of recent-onset psychotic patients. In the schizophrenic group, concordance was predictably highest among recent North American ‘cousins’, and lowest among various historical concepts. There was a moderately high concordance between selected schizoaffective and atypical psychosis definitions, indicating that this component is an important area for further studies of descriptive validity. These interrelationships may be used as a starting point to explore latent classes underlying the phenomena of functional psychosis.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association, Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, edn 3.American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association, Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn revised). American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Berner, P., Gabriel, E., Katschnig, H., Kieffer, W., Koehler, K., Lenz, G. & Simhandl, C. (1983). Diagnostic Criteria for Schizophrenic and Affective Psychoses. World Psychiatric Association/American Psychiatric Press: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Berner, P., Katschnig, H. & Lenz, G. (1986). The polydiagnostic approach in research in schizophrenia. In Issues in Psychiatric Classification (ed. Freedman, A. M., Botman, R., Silverman, I. and Hutson, D.), pp. 7091. Human Sciences Press, Inc.: New York.Google Scholar
Blashfield, R. K. (1973). Evaluation of the DSM-III classification of schizophrenia as a nomenclature. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 82, 382389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brockington, I. F. & Leff, J. P. (1979). Schizoaffective psychosis: definitions and incidence. Psychological Medicine 9, 9199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brockington, I. F. & Meltzer, H. Y. (1983). The nosology of schizoaffective psychosis. Psychiatric Developments 4, 317338.Google Scholar
Brockington, I. F., Kendell, R. E. & Leff, J. P. (1978). Definitions of schizophrenia: concordance and prediction of outcome. Psychological Medicine 8, 387398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brockington, I. F., Helzer, J. E., Hillier, V. F. & Francis, A. F. (1982 a). Definitions of depression: concordance and prediction of outcome. American Journal of Psychiatry 139, 10221027.Google ScholarPubMed
Brockington, I. F., Perris, C., Kendell, R. E., Hillier, V. E. & Wainwright, S. (1982 b). The course and outcome of cycloid psychosis. Psychological Medicine 12, 97105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brockington, I. F., Hillier, V. F., Francis, A. F., Helzer, J. E. & Wainwright, S. (1983). Definitions of mania: concordance and prediction of outcome. American Journal of Psychiatry 140, 435439.Google ScholarPubMed
Burbach, D. J., Lewine, R. & Meltzer, H. Y. (1984). Diagnostic concordance for schizophrenia as a function of sex. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 52, 478479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, W. T., Strauss, J. S. & Bartlo, J. (1973). A flexible system for the diagnosis of schizophrenia: report from the WHO International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia. Science 182, 12751278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, W. T., Strauss, J. S. & Muleh, S. (1974). Are there pathognomonic symptoms in schizophrenia? Archives of General Psychiatry 28, 847852.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, P. J. (1982). Schizoaffective disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 170, 646650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J. (1986). The continuum of psychosis and its implications for the structure of the gene. British Journal of Psychiatry 149, 419429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cutting, J. C., Clare, A. W. & Mann, A. H. (1978). Cycloid psychosis: an investigation of the diagnostic concept. Psychological Medicine 8, 637648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellard, J. (1987). Did schizophrenia exist before the eighteenth century? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 21, 306315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Endicott, J., Nee, J., Fleiss, J., Cohen, J., Williams, J. B. W. & Simon, R. (1982). Diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 884889.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feighner, J. P., Robins, E., Guze, S. B., Woodruff, R. A., Winokur, G. & Munoz, R. (1972). Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry 26, 5763.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenton, W. S., Mosher, L. R. & Matthews, S. M. (1981). Diagnosis of schizophrenia: a critical review of current diagnostic systems. Schizophrenia Bulletin 7, 452476.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenton, W. S., McGlashan, T. H. & Heinssen, R. K. (1988). A comparison of DSM-III and DSM-III-R schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 145, 14461449.Google ScholarPubMed
Harrow, M. & Grossman, L. S. (1984). Outcome in schizoaffective disorders: a critical review and reevaluation of the literature. Schizophrenia Bulletin 10, 87108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Helzer, J. E., Brockington, I. F. & Kendell, R. E. (1981). Predictive validity of DSM-III and Feighner definitions of schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 38, 791797.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kasanin, J. (1933). The acute schizoaffective psychoses. American Journal of Psychiatry 13, 97126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katschnig, H. & Simhandl, C. (1986). New developments in the classification and diagnosis of functional mental disorders. Psychopathology 19, 219235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keks, N. A., Copolov, D. L., Kulkarni, J., Mackie, B., Singh, B. S., McGorry, P., Robin, R. T., Hassett, A., McLaughlin, M. & van Riel, R. (1990). Basal and haloperidol-stimulated prolactin in neuroleptic-free men with schizophrenia defined by 11 diagnostic systems. Biological Psychiatry 27, 12031215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kellam, A. M. P. (1989). French empirical criteria for the diagnosis of non-affective non-organic psychoses. British Journal of Psychiatry 155, 153159.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendell, R. E. (1982). The choice of diagnostic criteria for biological research. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 13341339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendell, R. E. (1989). Clinical validity. Psychological Medicine 19, 4555.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraepelin, E. (1919). Dementia Praecox and Paraphrenia (translated by Barclay, R. M.). E. & S. Livingstone: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Kreitman, N. (1961). The reliability of psychiatric diagnosis. Journal of Mental Science 107, 878886.Google ScholarPubMed
Landmark, J. (1982). A manual for the assessment of schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica suppl. 298, 65, 188.Google Scholar
Leonhard, K. (1961). Cycloid psychoses – endogenous psychoses which are neither schizophrenic nor manic – depressive. Journal of Mental Science 197, 633648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGorry, P. D. (1991). Paradigm failure in functional psychosis: review and implications. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 25, 4355.Google ScholarPubMed
McGorry, P. D., Copolov, D. L. & Singh, B. S. (1989). The validity of the assessment of psychopathology in the psychoses. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 23, 469482.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGorry, P. D., Copolov, D. L. & Singh, B. S. (1990 a). Current concepts in functional psychosis: the case for a loosening of associations. Schizophrenia Research 3, 221234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGorry, P. D., Copolov, D. L. & Singh, B. S. (1990 b). Royal Park Multidiagnostic Instrument for Psychosis. I. Rationale and review. Schizophrenia Bulletin 16, 501515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGorry, P. D., Singh, B. S., Copolov, D. L., Kaplan, I., Dossetor, C. R., & van Riel, R. J. (1990 c). Royal Park Multidiagnostic Instrument for Psychosis. II. Development, reliability and validity. Schizophrenia Bulletin 16, 517536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maj, M. (1984). The evolution of some European diagnostic concepts relevant to the category of schizoaffective psychoses. Psychopathology 17, 158167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menuck, M., Legault, S., Schmidt, P. & Remington, G. (1989). The nosologic status of the remitting atypical psychoses. Comprehensive Psychiatry 30, 5373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mellor, C. S. (1970). First rank symptoms of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 117, 1523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monroe, R. R. (1982). Atypical psychosis: the disorder and its diagnosis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 170, 643645.Google ScholarPubMed
Philipp, M. & Maier, W. (1986). Methodological problems in polydiagnostic research. Psychopathology 19, 236243.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pope, H. G. & Lipinski, J. F. (1978). Diagnosis in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. Archives of General Psychiatry 35, 811828.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pull, C. B., Pull, M. C. & Pichot, P. (1983). Nosological position of schizoaffective psychoses in France. Psychiatria Clinica 16, 141148.Google ScholarPubMed
Schneider, K. (1959). Clinical Psychopathology. Grune & Stratton Inc.: New York.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. A. & Wiggins, O. P. (1986). Logical empiricism and psychiatric classification. Comprehensive Psychiatry 27, 101114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R. L., Endicott, J. & Robins, E. (1977). Research Diagnostic Criteria for a Selected Group of Functional Disorders. Biometrics Research Division: New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
SPSS Inc. (1986). SPSSX User's Guide. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Stephens, J., Astrup, C., Carpenter, W. T., Shaffer, J. W. & Goldberg, J. (1982). A comparison of nine systems to diagnose schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research 6, 127143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, J. S. & Gift, T. E. (1977). Choosing an approach for diagnosing schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 34, 12481253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, M. A. & Abrams, R. (1978). The prevalence of schizophrenia: a reassessment using modern diagnostic criteria. American Journal of Psychiatry 135, 945948.Google ScholarPubMed
Vogl, G. & Zaudig, M. (1985). Investigation of operationalized criteria in the diagnosis of schizoaffective and cycloid psychoses. Comprehensive Psychiatry 26, 110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Welner, A., Liss, J. L., Robins, E. & Richardson, M. (1972). Undiagnosed psychiatric patients – part I: record study. British Journal of Psychiatry 120, 315319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, M., Tanner, M. & Meltzer, H. (1982). Operational definitions of schizophrenia. What do they identify? Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 170, 443447.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zimmerman, M. (1988). Why are we rushing to publish DSM-IV? Archives of General Psychiatry 45, 11351138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed