RESEARCH ARTICLE | |
1. | Symptoms and Diagnosies of Patients Referring to A Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic in Batman Burcu Akın Sarı Pages 7 - 17 Objectives: The evaluation of demographical features, symptoms, diagnosis and diagnostic distributions of patients who presented to the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic is gaining importance to determine appropriate health services. Researches about this topic are mostly performed in big cities because of the small number of child and adolescent psychiatrist in other regions. In order to include data of different regions to determine the appropriate health services, patients who presented to the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic in Batman between 2010 and 2011 were analyzed in this study. Method: Retrospective chart reviews of the 2489 patients presenting in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department of Batman Gynecology and Child Hospital are evaluated. Results: Most of the cases were boys and in the age group of 0- 6. Most frequent complaint is nervousness (11.7%) and most frequent diagnosis is attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (16.6%). Distributions of diagnosis varied according to complaint and age components of the patients. The percentage of the patients having current suicidal ideation and/or previous suicidal attempt was 1.9%. Conclusion: As a result, despite the fact that our study had some common findings with the previous studies, there are some discrepancies in terms of age groups and the distribution of diagnosis. These discrepancies may be associated with the geographical facts. Therefore, it is suggested that while the services of child psychiatry clinics are arranged, the features of the geographic regions are to be concerned. |
2. | The Effect of Self Construa/s on Adolescents' Life Satisfaction and Depression Level Ümit Morsünbül Pages 18 - 26 Objectives: Life satisfaction and depression are important variables which effect adolescent's mental health. Autonomy is an important developmental task in adolescent period. Autonomy has been explained with the concept of self construal in context of cultural psychology. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of self construals that defined by Kagitsibasi on adolescent's scores of life satisfaction and depression. Method: A total of 494 high school students participated in the study. Of these 184 were male and 210 were female. Their age range was from 14 to 17 and mean age was 15.87 (Sd=0.86). Autonomous-Related Self-in-Family Scales, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were administered to collect data. Pearson Correlation and Path analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: The results revealed that self construals predicted significantly adolescent's life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Results showed that autonomous self predicted positively depression but did not predict significantly life satisfaction, related self predicted positively life satisfaction but did not predict depression and finally autonomous-related self positively predicted life satisfaction and negatively predicted depression. Conclusion: Autonomous-related self both increase individuals' life satisfaction and prevail depression because it covers two basic needs: autonomy and relatedness. The results of this study showed that autonomy and relatedness are both important for the adolescents' mental health. According to results of this study parents and specialists should support adolescents' autonomy and relatedness. |
3. | Turkish Version of the Whiteley Index (Turkish WI-7): Reliability, Validity, and Factorial Structure Hüseyin Güleç, Medine Yazıcı Güleç, Elif Keleş Ünal, Aytül Karabekiroglu, Kemal Sayar, Samet Köse Pages 27 - 33 Objectives: In this study, we examined the reliability, validity, and factorial structure of the Turkish version of the Whiteley Index (Wl -7), a scale developed by Pilowsky and modified by Fink et al to measure hypochondriasis or health anxiety as an indicator of somatic stimulus and /or changes along with its reliability, validity, and factorial structure. Method: The study was conducted in healthy volunteers at a university school (n=240) and in patients who are attending outpatient Psychiatry Clinic (n=120). Participants were administered the Turkish version of the Whiteley Index (Turkish Wl -7), the Symptom Check List (SCL-90R), and the Beck Depression Inventory. Results: Individual items (r=0.27-0.52) and total score (r=0.46) showed weak - to - moderate test -retest correlations. The Cronbach's coefficient was 0.78. In validity analysis, significant differences were found between total Wl -7 scores of patients and healthy controls. Factor analysis yielded a two factor structure: somatic symptoms / somatic preoccupation (items #1, #2, #4, #5 and #7) and disease worry / phobia (items #3 and #6). The Turkish Wl -7 were correlated well with the SCL -90R subscales and the BDI. Conclusion: Despite certain limitations, the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, validity and factorial structure of the Turkish version of the Whiteley Index were supported by its reliable psychometric properties and construct validity in a representative Turkish sample. |
4. | Investigation of Death Anxiety Among Depressive Patients Nilgün Öngider, Suna Özışık Eyüboğlu Pages 34 - 46 Objectives: The general aim of this study was to examine the relationship between depression levels and death anxiety levels among patients diagnosed with depressive disorder. Method: The research sample consists of 135 (100 women 74.1% and 35 men 25.9%) patients who are diagnosed with depressive disorder at one of the psychiatry out-patient clinics of a state hospital in Istanbul. Individuals who volunteered to attend the research are between ages 18 and 60 years. The patients are given Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) and a questionnaire for demographics. Results: Correlation analysis pointed out that there was a significant relation between the depression points and death anxiety points in the depressive patients group (r=.366, p<01). Furthermore, research sample is divided into 3 groups as high, moderate and low levels of depression. Then all three depression groups are compared for death anxiety levels. It was found that, there were significant relation between the level of depression and death anxiety (F=10.765, p<.001). This finding suggests that the high and moderate level depression groups had higher death anxiety than low level depression group. Conclusion: The hypothesis of this study was that when depression levels get higher the death anxiety level would be higher. Consistent with the study hypothesis, results demonstrated that, depression levels effects death anxiety level. Consequently, the results of this study highlight the relationship between depression level death anxiety. In addition, it was speculated that depressive people think more about death. |
5. | Common Medical Problems in Inpatient Psychiatric Care Clinics Çağatay Karşıdağ, Umut Mert Aksoy, Gökşen Yüksel, Nihat Alpay, Atilla Uysal Pages 47 - 52 Objectives: Recently, many treatment and rehabilitation programs have been developed to increase life quality of psychiatric patients. Nevertheless, comorbid medical problems of psychiatric patients are still being neglected. This may lead to unpredictable complications or exacerbation of the existing psychiatric disorder of the patient. Consultations of all psychiatric patients treated in a psychiatric hospital were examined. We aimed to pay attention to the comorbidity in the psychiatric inpatients. Method: Patients hospitalized to psychiatry services of the mental hospital between January 2007 and December 2009 were enrolled in the study. With this object in mind, we screened 6334 consultation request recorded in our hospital's automation system. Age, gender, inpatient psychiatry clinic, number of hospitalized days, specialty from which a consultation is required and the discharge diagnostics of the patients were investigated. Results: Although the number of hospitalized patients has decreased the power of the study, size of the case number increased it. The evaluation of the diagnosis based on the requested specialties revealed that 23.7% of the cases were requested from neurology. It was followed by respiratory system diseases (15.5%), musculoskeletal system diseases (14.4%), endocrine and metabolic diseases (13.3%) and cardiovascular diseases (11.3%) respectively. Conclusion: Comorbid diseases will exacerbate the clinical manifestation of the psychiatric diseases and on the other hand this will increase the severity of the existing medical condition. Therefore, general medical condition of the psychiatric patients must not be neglected. It is obvious that psychiatrists should update their general medical knowledge in this respect. |
CASE REPORT | |
6. | A Bipolar Disorder Patient with Arachnoid Cysts: A Case Report Hatice Harmancı, Aziz Mehmet Gökbakan Pages 53 - 56 Arachnoid cysts are cystic brain masses, filled with a liquid similar to cerebrospinal fluid. They generally do not show clinical presentation and they are incidentally detected during routine radiological evaluations. Although generally congenital, they can also develop following a trauma, a haemorrhage or an infection. They constitute approximately 1% of all brain tumours. In general, these masses are located on midbrain. Even though their clinical presentation depends on their localization and their size, arachnoid cysts are generally asymptomatic. Epileptic seizures, headache, discomfort due to the increase in intracranial pressure are among symptoms of these masses. In addition, conditions such as some endocrine disorders, optic neuritis, hydrocephalus can be cited among reasons by which patients apply to a medical institution. Psychiatric disorders which ocur because of the arachnoid cysts are rare but there are case reports depicted in the literature. In a great majority of the case reports, the co-ocurrence of arachnoid cysts and psychosis are brought up. Symptoms and signs most encountered in these cases are mentioned such as visual hallucinations, talking with unreal creatures, nervousness, irritability, persecutory way of thinking, suspiciousness and motor excitation. As we investigated case reports already published, we stated that two group of researchers put forth the accompaniment of bipolar disorder and arachnoid cysts. In the present case report, we report a patient with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and, arachnoid cysts in the right temporal lobe and left sylvian fissure. |
7. | Primary Enuresis Nocturna in Adult Pages 57 - 61 Enuresis nocturna is defined as recurrent urinary leakage. Classified as primary and secondary according to acqusition of urinary continans before age of 5 and nocturnal if it is at only nights and diurnal if at days and nigths. The mentioned prevalance of enuresis nocturna in DSM-IV-TR is 7% for boys and 3% for girls, at age of 5. By age 18 only 1% of boys and even fewer girls are stil continuing bed wetting. The causes are inappropriate toilet training, poor living conditions, low socio-cultural level, urinary infections, various slepping disorders, spina bifida and diabetes. The differential diagnosis of all these factors should be reviewed and organic pathology should be ruled out. If not early diagnosed and treated, this disease can persist for up to adult ages, along with the emergence of a variety of psychiatric disorders and the treatment can become more difficult. When enuresis nocturna is left untreated in children, it becomes a unique, complex psychosomatic phenomenon in adulthood. In this case report, an early diagnosed but not completely treated 22 year-old, female enuretic patient is discussed. The case has left her formal education and didn't have a proper relationship with the opposite sex because of comorbid recurrent depresive episods. The purpose of our paper is to highlight the social relationship problems and comorbid axis I psychiatric disorders of untreated enuresis nocturna in adults. |