The aim of this study is to compare the relative effectiveness of two etiological theories related with Eating Disorders (ED), locus of control and low self-esteem in predicting the severity of ED symptoms. Collage student subjects (n=342) completed Rosenberg Self- Esteem Scale (RSES), Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R) and Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (RIELCS). A multiple regression analysis employed locus of control and self-esteem as predictors of EAT scores. A second regression analysis also was conducted with global symptom index score of SCL-90-R serving as the dependent variable with the same predictor variables. The best predictor variable of EAT total score was the selfesteem. There was not statistically significant correlation between RIELCS and EAT score. 5.5 percent of variance associated with the EAT scores could be accounted for by RSES. The best predictor of global symptom index score of SCL-90-R was RSES and locus of control was the second. The best predictor of these two measures in multiple regression was the self-esteem subscale of RSES. These results support that low self-esteem is more predictive than external locus of control.

There has been a growing interest in the overlap between depression and anxiety disorders following the changes of hierarchical exclusion criteria in DSM-III-R. Dexamethasone suppression test (DST), which is a partial marker of hypothalamo-pituatory axis, is one of the most used laboratory tests in psychiatry. DST has also been employed in anxiety disorder studies, although it has been frequently used in the affective disorder research studies. It's not clear whether secondary anxiety disorders, which are fre-quently comorbid with depression are clinically and biologically similar in characteristics to primary depressive disorders. In this study the aim was to seek for a possible differentiation between the primary depressive disorder and secondary anxiety disorders to depression. We have also studied DST results and the place of DST in overlapping anxiety and depressive disorders. The study population consisted of thirty seven patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for major depression. SCID-OP (Structured clinical interview for DSM-III-R outpatient version) was used to confirm diagnoses. Beck anxiety, Beck depression and Beck hopelessness and suicidal behaviour scales were completed to assess the severity of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and suicidal behaviour. To assess sociodemographic and clinical aspects, semi- structured questionary form were administered to each patient. Patients were given I mg dexamethasone on 23: 00 PM and the blood samples were taken following day at 16: 00 PM. There were no significant relationship between sociodemographic variables such as sex, living status, age and socio-economic level and DST. We found lineer correlations between number of depressive episodes and hopelessness and suicidal behaviour. However, there were no correlations between suicidal behaviour and post-DST cortisole levels. Twenty six patients (70.3%) met the DSM-III-R criteria for secondary anxiety disorder to major depression. There were no statistically significant differences between pure depressive disorder group and anxiety disorder secondary to major depression group for the post DST cortisole levels. Of the pure depressive disorder group anxiety level was statistically significant higher among the DST supressives than non supressives. Although we found no biological differences with the number of episodes of depression, patients' cognition could change. Hopelessness and suicidal behaviour increased with the number of depressive episodes.The presence of anxiety with depression plays a central role in the DST nonsupression via HPA axis. Secondary anxiety disorders to depression appeared to be different state clinically and biologically.

Avoidant personality disorder (APD) is known to show high comorbidity with social phobic particularly with generalized sub- type. Social phobia patients who also meet criteria for APD displayed greater social dysfunction and psychopathology in previous research. The aim of this study is to inquire the impact of comorbid APD on psychopathology in generalized social phobic (GSP) patients. 24 patients who were diagnosed as generalized subtype of social phobia according to DSM-IV criteria were involved in the study. Patients were interviewed with SCID-II and dichotomized into two groups according to the presence of APD. The two group of generalized social phobic patients with and without APD were compared with self-report measures and according to demographic characteristics. Generalized type social phobic patients with APD show significantly higher levels of depression compared to the patients without APD. GSP patients with APD also show significantly greater social phobia and avoidance compared to the patients with GSP alone. There was not a significant difference between hopelessness, alexithymia,anxiety and disability measures between the two groups. APD increases the level of psychopathology when it is comorbid with generalized social phobia but this does not lead to a greater disability. APD is not detected in a subgroup of GSP patients and this finding is not in line with the assumption that APD is a more severe form of social phobia.

This study was done to investigate the comorbidity of social phobia and psychiatric illnesses of the patients who applied to psychiatric clinic. Connected susbscales of DIS were applied to totaly 195 patients who had at first applied to psychiatry clinic in'a three months period for any psychological problem. Psychiatric interview was done with them. Sociodemogrophic characteristics of the parents were determined with semistructured form developed by researchers. Data were statistically analysed in SPSS programme. 82 patients (42.1%) were found to have social phobia with a psychiatric illness. Social phobia was found to be at promotion of 35.4% with depression, 11% with psychosis like schizophrenia, 11% with obsessive compulsive disorder, 8.5 % with generally anxiety disorder. Frequency of social phobia comorbidity of male psychiatric patienst (54.7%) was higher than female ones (34.2%) (p<0.05), one phobic situation was found in 24.7% of patients two phobic situations were found in 33.3% of them and three or more phobic situations were found 42% of them. It might be useful to investigate the reasons affecting the evidence of psychiatric illnesses in social phobic patients and to make long term and controlled studies with them to understand comorbidity of frequent social phobia in psychiatric illnesses better.

Schizophrenia is now conceptualised as a neurodevelopmental disorder. Previous studies have documented schizophrenic patients have increased nonlocalizing neurological abnormalities called neurological soft signs (NSS) compared to controls. The early onset schizophrenia is characterised phenomenologically by prominent negative symptoms, tend to respond less well to neuroleptic treatment, generally poor outcome, delays in social, language and motor development and have higher rate structural brain anomalies. This study compares the NSS and other clinical factors of schizophrenia (negative and positive symptoms) of 30 early onset with (<17 years old) 30 adult onset schizophrenic patients. Patients diagnosed according to DSM-IV were assessed using the semi- structured information questionnaire, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and physical and neurological examination for soft signs (PANESS), brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS), Scale for the assessment of positive symptoms (SAPS), scale for the assessment of negative symptoms (SANS). The total score of PANESS and the scores of the subgroups ofsyn- ergy, graphestesia, stereognosia, gait and topognosis, rapid movement, nystagmus, were significantly, higher in the early onset group. These findings suggest that there is a possible relationship of neurological soft signs which is accepted as an evidence of pathological process in the neurodevelopment of schizophrenia, and early onset of schizophrenia.

IV drug users behaviors are risk taking, related to the substances they are addicted to. In this study it's aimed to investigate the problems IV drug users has to face and some of their behavioral characteristics related to the IVdrug use. With this aim, the data of the heroin users, which was gained from the study that was done in 10 cities in Turkey was evaluated. In our study it is found that although injector sharing between drug users was high, they didn't have enough knowledge about injector cleaning. Also getting injured because of drug use, taking medical help because of problems related to drug use, driving under the effect of drug, stealing, making acts against law and morals and selling drugs and suicide attempts was higher in IV heroin users than not IV heroin users. These results show that IV heroin users take more risk behaviors and they live more problems than not IV heroin users. Thus the importance of harm reduction politics like education and substitution treatment comes in to the view, for persons who continue to use IV heroin.

The serotonin transporter (5-hydroxytryptamine transporter, 5- HTT, SERT) gene is considered to be a promising candidate for genetic involvement in psychiatric disorders owing to its role in the regulation of serotoninergic neurotransmission. The serotonin transporter (SERT) gene has long been implicated to be involved in the pathogenesis of major psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, autism, bipolar affective disorder, seasonal affective disorder and some psychosomatic disorders as fibromyalgia, and migrain. Two polymorphic sites in serotonin transporter gene have attracted much interest: a variable-number-tandem-repeats (VNTR) of 17 bp sequence in intron 2 creating 9, 10 and 12 repeat alleles, and a 44 bp insertion/deletion in 5'-flanking promoter region (5-HTT gene-linked polymorphic region, or 5-HTTLPR) creating a short (S) and a long (L) allele. The polymorphisms of the SERT gene were detected by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 121 healthy unrelated controls, all were Turkish origin. The frequencies of alleles 9, 10, 12, S and L of the SERT gene were observed 0.000, 0.2686, 0.7314, 0.5083 and 0.4917, respectively. In this study we aimed to evaluate the frame of serotonin transporter gene polymorphism in Turkish healthy controls.

Genetic polymorphism is an important factor which affect the activities of enzymes taking part in drug metabolism. The polymorphic cytochrome P450 2C19 (CYP2C19) activity shows sig-nificant inter-individual and inter-ethnic variability. CYP2C19 contributes to metabolism of several drugs such as citalopram, omeprazole, S-mephenytoin, diazepam, amitriptilin, cyclophosphamide, proguanil, and moclobemide. In this study cytochrome P450 2C19 and 3A4 enzyme and drug interactions depending on these enzymes were reviewed because of the side effects developed after citalopram using. It is beneficial to know that citalopram which is relatively safe can interact with omeprazole, claritromycine, and progesterone in a situation especially when there is multidrug using.

The clinical usefulness of attachment disorder concept is discussed by presenting a case diagnosed of reactive attachment disorder and dissociative disorder comorbidity.