[The phenomenology of delusions of poisoning in persons with paranoid schizophrenia]. / Die Phänomenologie des Vergiftungswahns bei Menschen mit paranoider Schizophrenie.

GOAL: The aim of the study was to investigate delusions of poisoning in people with paranoid schizophrenia. Specifically, how often delusions of poisoning occur, how the delusional content is represented and to what extent women and men differ in delusions of poisoning were analysed. METHODS & SAMPLE: Data were collected retrospectively from two psychiatric wards in Germany. Base material comprised the medical records of all persons receiving inpatient treatment due to their paranoid schizophrenia between 2010 and 2014 in one of the two psychiatric wards. The sample consisted of 156 people (96 women, 60 men) diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia showing delusions of poisoning. RESULTS: Delusions of poisoning were a common delusional theme which significantly more often occurred in women than in men. Moreover, women were significantly more likely to have delusions of persecution in addition to their delusions of poisoning. Overall, people with delusions of poisoning often reported being poisoned by close relatives or health workers. Most of those affected assumed that poisoning was carried out through medication, food or drinks.

A preliminary report of the dopamine receptor D(4) and the dopamine transporter 1 gene polymorphism and its association with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent childhood-onset psychiatric syndromes affecting 5%-10% of school-age children worldwide. Distortions in the catecholaminergic system seem to be responsible for this condition. Within this system there are several candidate genes, the dopamine receptor D(4) (DRD4) and the dopamine transporter 1 (DAT1), with common polymorphism which might be associated with ADHD. We performed a family based association study with 36 trios and 19 parent proband pairs. All diagnoses were confirmed by the "Hypescheme" diagnostic computer program. In this study we did not observe an association of ADHD with DRD4 and DAT1 polymorphism neither by the haplotype relative risk (HRR) method nor by the transmission disequilibrium test (TdT) method. The odds ratio for the DRD4 7-allele was 1.01 and 0.94 for both statistical tests, respectively, and the respective odds ratio for the DAT1 6-allele were 0.91 and 0.88.

Differences in family functioning between patients with chronic headache and patients with chronic low back pain.

The family climate in 36 families, comprising 154 individuals, was investigated. The objective of this study was to compare families where the mother suffered from chronic headache to families with pain-free mothers and to those where the mother suffered from chronic low back pain. The Family Environment Scale (FES) was used to evaluate the family climate in these 3 groups as perceived by the members of the family. The results in sufficiently standardized groups show a significantly reduced intra-family openness (P < 0.0001) in families where the mother suffered from chronic headache. Both pain groups were less active in their leisure time than the pain-free families. Based on the findings of the present study, the impact of the psychosocial environment as a novel normative value for chronic pain syndromes is discussed in relation to the need for further research and treatment modalities.