Whilst steady progress has been made in the development and dissemination of valid and reliable instruments for evaluation of patient outcomes, progress in establishing standard methodologies for description and classification of mental health services has been limited. Valid and reliable methods of describing and classifying services are needed in mental health services research for purposes including; i) comparison of levels of provision between catchment areas and countries; ii) reaching an understanding of the relationship between socio-demographic indicators and service use; iii) investigation of the degree to which one service may be substituted for another; iv) evaluating programme implementation; and v) understanding why different outcomes are observed from apparently similar treatment programmes. Where programmes of research encompass different countries, the need for methods of comparing the local service contexts is particularly acute. In this paper, the various contributions which have been made to the somewhat fragmented body of research in this area are reviewed, and the problems which have hampered the development of satisfactory instruments are discussed. A set of criteria for satisfactory service measurement methodologies is proposed: these include development of standard nomenclature and operational definitions of service types; clear demonstration of validity and reliability; comprehensiveness; and applicability and similar interpretation in a range of countries.

The introduction of ICD-10 has changed the diagnostic borders of affective disorders in clinical psychiatry. The current study presents the diagnostic concordance between ICD-8 diagnoses given in 1993 and ICD-10 diagnoses given in 1994 to the same patients admitted in both years, according to the Danish register of psychiatric admissions. In total, 1,487 patients received an ICD-8 diagnosis of manicdepressive psychoses in 1993 and were re-admitted in 1994. The majority of patients (84.0%) with a manic-depressive diagnosis according to ICD-8 received a diagnosis of affective disorder according to ICD-10. Patients with a diagnosis of affective disorder according to ICD-10 had previously been diagnosed as manic-depressive (69.6%), psychogenic psychoses (8.7%). personality disorders (5.5%) or neurosis (3.2%) according to ICD-8. The ICD-10 concept of affective disorder thus appeared broader and more comprehensive compared with ICD-8.

Seasonal variation in the births of patients with schizophrenia is a consistently replicated epidemiological finding. Few studies have investigated this phenomenon among patients with a diagnosis of affective disorder. The majority of season of birth studies have employed the chi square test for statistical analysis, a method that has been subject to some criticism. Using a Kolgomorov-Smirnov type statistic, the quarterly birth distribution of 6,646 patients with an ICD 9/10 diagnosis of affective disorder were compared to the general population. Only the births of those individuals with unipolar forms of affective disorder (n = 4,393) differed significantly from the general population, with significant excesses and deficits in the second quarter and fourth quarter respectively. These results were not altered by application of the displacement test. © 1998 Elsevier, Paris

Twenty-eight schizophrenic and other long-term mentally ill patients who were given cognitive therapy sessions twice a week in the context of a comprehensive inpatient treatment program were assessed every 5 weeks regarding perceived curative factors. The assessments were made by a self-rating questionnaire (Curative Factors Questionnaire [CFQ]) and a qualitative assessment from the patients of what they perceived as helpful in treatment. The results showed that milieu therapeutic elements and therapy sessions were perceived as the most helpful throughout the treatment period. No correlations were found between patient characteristics and perceived curative factors. The factors “instillation of hope”, “problem solution” and “learning I’m not alone” as rated in the initial phase of treatment showed a positive relationship with a favourable outcome of treatment at discharge.

We present two cases of Charles Bonnet syndrome in comorbidity with Parkinson’s disease. Patients developed visual hallucinosis before starting any antiparkisonian treatment. We briefly discuss the possible physiopathological mechanisms involving low visual acuity and Parkinson’s disease with visual hallucinosis.