Although a genetic component in schizophrenia is well established, it is likely that the contribution of genetic factors is not constant for all cases. Several recent studies have found that the relatives of female or early onset schizophrenic patients have an increased risk of schizophrenia, compared to relatives of male or late onset cases. These hypotheses are tested in the current study.

A family study design was employed; the probands were 195 patients with functional psychosis admitted to three south London hospitals, diagnosed using Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC), and assessed using the Present State Examination (PSE). Information on their relatives was obtained by personal interview of the mother of the proband, and from medical records. Psychiatric diagnoses were made using Family History – Research Diagnostic Criteria (FH-RDC), blind to proband information.

There was a tendency for homotypia in the form of psychosis within families. The lifetime risk of schizophrenia in the first degree relatives of schizophrenic probands, and the risk of bipolar disorder in the first degree relatives of bipolar probands, were 5–10 times higher than reported population risks. Relatives of female and early onset (<22 years) schizophrenic probands had higher risk of schizophrenia than relatives of male and late onset schizophrenic probands. However, this effect was compensated in part by an excess of non-schizophrenic psychoses in the relatives of male probands.

These results suggest a high familial, possibly genetic, loading in female and early onset schizophrenia, but do not resolve the question of heterogeneity within schizophrenia.

This study was undertaken to fill gaps in our knowledge of the rate of mood disorder in teenage girls in transition from school to further education, employment or unemployment.

Girls aged 15–20 years (n = 529) whose names were drawn from general practitioner age/sex registers were interviewed at home and completed the Great Ormond Street Mood Questionnaire. Their mothers completed the 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Social background variables were obtained.

Of the girls, 20.8% scored over the cut-off point previously established to indicate risk of psychiatric disorder. Scoring over the cut-off point was not associated with age or parental social class. It was associated with parental separation/divorce (P < 0.004), with maternal self-report on the GHQ (P < 0.001), and with parental unemployment (P < 0.04). Lowest self-report scores were obtained by girls who had left school and were in employment (P < 0.01).

About one in five of girls aged 15–20 are at risk of affective disorder. Self-reported mood disturbance is associated with a wide range of social and familial background variables, but not with age or parental socioeconomic status.

Clarification is still required of the nature of pathological love.

A series is presented of 16 personally assessed cases with pathologies of love (erotomania).

The pathologies of love usually involve a mixture of morbid infatuation and a morbid belief in being loved. They occur both in a symptomatic form, as part of an underlying mental illness, as well as in a pure form, where their emergence is to some extent understandable in a vulnerable personality. These disorders often go unrecognised to the detriment of clinical management.

Pathologies of love create distress and disruption to the patient, and place the objects of their unwarranted affection at risk of at best harassment and at worst violence. Although this series of cases, which is drawn predominantly from forensic practice, overemphasises the risk of overt violence, the distress occasioned by pursuit and harassment alone should not be underestimated.

Late paraphrenia is recognised as a heterogeneous disorder. This is reflected by the division of such patients into schizophrenia and delusional disorder in ICD-10. Earlier imaging studies have suggested that major structural abnormalities may be associated with the onset of psychosis in later life.

Fifty late paraphrenics and 35 age-matched healthy controls underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging of the whole brain in the coronal plane. Measurements were made of intracranial and brain volumes and the volumes of the intracerebral and extracerebral cerebrospinal fluid spaces.

No differences in intracranial, brain or extracerebral cerebrospinal fluid volumes between patients and controls were found. Late paraphrenic patients had greater lateral and third ventricle volumes than controls and the left lateral ventricle was larger than the right. When the patients were divided into appropriate ICD-10 diagnoses: paranoid schizophrenia (n = 31) and delusional disorder (n = 16), lateral ventricle volumes in the delusional disorder patients were much greater than those of the schizophrenics and almost twice those of controls.

Structural brain differences underly diagnostic heterogeneity within late paraphrenia. The brains of late onset schizophrenics are only subtly different from those of healthy elderly individuals.

The Daily Living Programme (DLP) offered problem-oriented, home-based care for people aged 17–64 with severe mental illness facing emergency admission to the Bethlem–Maudsley Hospital. The multidisciplinary DLP team acted as direct provider and link with other services. Each patient had a key worker. Cost-effectiveness was assessed.

The comprehensive costs of DLP and standard in-patient care were compared within a randomised controlled trial. Cost measures ranged over all service inputs and living expenses. The costs of informal care and lost employment were also considered. Assessments of service use, costs and outcomes were conducted at referral, 4, 11 and 20 months.

The DLP was significantly less costly than standard treatment in both short and medium term (P = 0.000). Cost savings accrued almost exclusively to the NHS, with no other agency's costs being higher.

Coupled with mildly encouraging outcome results over the 20 month period, the DLP was clearly cost-effective in this medium term.

This study investigated biological correlates of depression in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). We tested the hypothesis that in patients with PD and depression, there was regional dysfunction involving brain areas previously implicated in functional imaging studies of patients with primary depression.

Using positron emission tomographic measurements of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), patterns of resting rCBF were measured in ten patiens with PD and major depression, and ten patients with PD alone. The results were compared with findings from ten patients with primary depression and ten normal controls, scanned using identical methods as part of an earlier study. Groups were matched for age, sex and symptom severity.

Bilateral decreases in rCBF were observed in anteromedial regions of the medial frontal cortex and the cingulate cortex (Brodmann's areas (BA) 9 and 32) in the depressed PD group, compared with those with PD alone and compared with normal controls. This regional disturbance overlapped that observed in patients with primary depression.

The findings indicate that the medial prefrontal cortex is a common area of neural dysfunction in the manifestation of both primary depression and depression in PD.

The prevalence of psychotic phenomena in confirmed Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their potential neuropathological correlates have rarely been the subject of prospective investigation.

Psychopathological disturbances were recorded prospectively according to the Geriatric Mental State Schedule and the CAMDEX. The frequency of these phenomena and neuropathological changes were examined in 56 patients with definite AD.

Hallucinations had been documented in 13 patients, paranoid delusions in 9 and delusional misidentification (e.g. the Capgras-type and the ‘phantom boarder’ symptoms) in 14 patients. Misidentifications were associated with lower neurone counts in the area CA1 of the hippocampus. Delusions and hallucinations were observed in patients with less severe cell loss in the parahippocampal gyrus and with lower cell counts in the dorsal raphe nucleus. A decrease of neurones in the locus coeruleus in a subset of depressed patients with AD had been reported earlier. Delusions and delusional misidentification were common in 5 patients with basal ganglia mineralisation, but there was no statistically significant association of these symptoms with the presence of Lewy bodies in the brainstem and neocortex of our patient sample.

These findings are compatible with the view that morphological changes in certain brain areas may promote the development of psychotic phenomena in AD. AD may offer a model for the understanding of pathomechanisms underlying the development of psychopathological disturbances in other psychoses with more discrete neuropathological changes.

The aim was to examine in a population of schizophrenic patients the clinical correlates of ‘neurodevelopmental’ schizophrenia and their relationship to putative aetiological factors.

Premorbid social adjustment, premorbid schizoid and schizotypal personality traits, and the obstetric history of 40 schizophrenic patients and their 102 sibs were assessed through interviews with their mothers. Patients' premorbid level of intelligence was assessed by the National Adult Reading Test and current symptoms by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Subjective Deficit Syndrome Scale.

Patients had more schizoid and schizotypal traits than their sibs. They showed a deterioration in social adjustment between childhood and adolescence; sibs' social adjustment improved. There were statistically significant associations between current negative schizophrenic symptoms, premorbid deterioration in social adjustment, and schizoid and schizotypal personality traits, and between an early age of onset of illness and the same premorbid assessments. There was no evidence that patients with a family history of severe mental illness leading to hospitalisation, or a history of definite obstetric complications, had poorer premorbid functioning or more severe current symptoms.

We have confirmed clinical correlates of ‘neurodevelopmental’ schizophrenia but found no association between these and obstetric complications or a family history of severe mental disorder.

The effect of a randomised controlled withdrawal of home-based care was studied for half of a sample of seriously mentally ill (SMI) patients from an inner London catchment area, compared with the effects of continuing home-based care.

Patients, aged 18–64, had entered the trial at month 0 when facing emergency admission for SMI. After at least 20 months home-based care (Phase I), patients were randomised at month 30 into Phase II (months 30–45) to have either further home-based care (DLPII, n = 33) or be transferred to out-/in-patient care (DLP-control, n = 33). They were assessed at 30, 34, and 45 months. Phase I control patients (n = 10) were assessed again at month 45. Measures used were number and duration of in-patient admissions, independent ratings of clinical and social function, and patients' and relatives' satisfaction.

The slim clinical and social gains from home-based v. out-/in-patient care during Phase I were largely lost in Phase II. Duration of crisis admissions increased from Phase I to Phase II in both DLPII and DLP-control patients. During Phase II, patients' and relatives' satisfaction remained greater for home-based than out-/in-patient care patients. At 45 months, compared with the Phase I controls, DLPII patients and relatives were more satisfied with care. Such satisfaction was independent of clinical/social gains.

The loss of Phase I gains were perhaps due to attenuation of home-based care quality and to benefits of Phase I home-based care lingering into Phase II in DLP-controls. The Phase II home-based care team suffered from low morale.

Recent post-mortem and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies strongly suggest a decrease in the volume of the hippocampus and other limbic temporal structures in schizophrenia. Therefore, we hypothesised that N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) which is found mainly in neurons and which can be measured by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) would be decreased in the limbic temporal region in schizophrenia.

Consenting subjects fulfilling DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia (n = 11) and matched healthy volunteers (n = 11) who were recruited in a tertiary university referral centre, participated in a 1H MRS brain study. Proton MRS spectra were obtained from a 12 cm3 voxel (2 × 2 × 3 cm) in the right and left hippocampus/amygdala region. A researcher blind to the source of the spectra, measured the NAA intensity in all subjects, which were then statistically compared across the two groups.

NAA intensities were significantly reduced in the right hippocampus/amygdala region of schizophrenic patients (P = 0.038). The difference of the left side did not reach significance at the 95% confidence level.

The findings of decreased NAA in this study suggest that there may be a decrement in neuronal number or tissue volume of the right hippocampal/amygdala region in schizophrenia. Biochemical alterations in the metabolism of NAA in schizophrenia may be an alternative explanation. The findings are consistent with other types of post-mortem and in vivo evidence for hypoplasia of the limbic temporal structures in schizophrenia, postulated to be of neurodevelopmental pathogenesis.

Little is known about men who kill in a sexual context. The present study compares a group of sexual murderers with a group of men who had raped but not killed.

Twenty-one men who murdered women in the course of a sexual attack and 121 men convicted of rape were interviewed in six prisons. Victim statements were obtained in 103 cases (73%). Assessment consisted of a 90-minute semi-structured interview, the Eysenck 1–7 questionnaire, and the Schonell reading test.

The most notable characteristic distinguishing the men who killed was their lifelong isolation and lack of heterosexual relationships.

A better understanding of the social and emotional isolation commonly found in sexual murderers may provide important insights into why some sexual offenders go on to kill.

This study investigated the prevalence and background variables associated with anxiety and depressive disorders occurring in a community population of older teenage girls.

Girls aged 15–20 years (n = 529) whose names were drawn from general practitioner age/sex registers completed self-report Great Ormond Street Mood Questionnaires. From this sample, 143 girls (69 with high self-report scores and 74 controls) were intensively interviewed. Information was obtained on confiding/supportive relationships, family arguments and rows, quality of marital relationship, and degree of parental control. Psychiatric state was assessed by use of the Clinical Interview Schedule to provide a Total Weighted Score. A modified form of the Bedford Life Events and Difficulties Schedule was applied.

The estimated one-year prevalence rate for psychiatric disorder was 18.9%, and 16.9% for depression and anxiety disorders. Using a logit analysis, it was shown that maternal distress (P < 0.02) and the quality of the mother's marriage (P < 0.02) were independently associated with the presence of depression and anxiety disorders.

About 17% of girls in a community sample living at home showed a depression or anxiety disorder. Even in late adolescence, the presence of a mood disorder is closely linked to the quality of family relationships within the home.

The aim was to study the effect of brief counselling and psychological debriefing following a trauma on subsequent morbidity.

We investigated psychological morbidity in 62 British soldiers whose duties included the handling and identification of dead bodies of allied and enemy soldiers during the Gulf War. Of these soldiers, 69% received a psychological debriefing on completion of their duties. The subjects completed by post a demographic questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the Impact of Events Scale.

After nine months 50% had evidence of some psychological disturbance suggestive of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); 18% had sought professional help; 26% reported relationship difficulties. Neither prior training nor the psychological intervention appeared to make any difference to subsequent psychiatric morbidity. Morbidity at nine months was more likely in those with a history of psychological problems and those who believed their lives had been in danger in the Gulf.

These findings show that a psychological debriefing following a series of traumatic events or experiences does not appear to reduce subsequent psychiatric morbidity and highlights the need for further research in military and civilian settings.