RESUMO
This is a cross-sectional descriptive study done in the Psychiatric indoor of North Bengal Medical College between December 2018 to December 2019. Catatonia was diagnosed using DSM-5 criteria in the patients admitted. A total 30 patients were included in the study. The patients were assessed by Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale, were given oral or parenteral lorazepam as needed and observed for 2-3 weeks. Non-responders were given modified ECT as per convention. Background diagnoses were checked by thorough history taking and investigations.RESULTSMajority of the patients were Hindu males in their twenties from rural lower-middle socio-economic families, around 20% of them having family history of affective and psychotic illnesses. They were diagnosed mostly with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses (53%) and mood disorders (30%). The mean BFCRS score at the time admission was 20.93 ± 6.16. The commonly found symptoms were mutism, staring, negativism, rigidity, posturing/catalepsy, mannerism, and withdrawal. It was seen that 83.33% of cases responded well to lorazepam only, whereas the rest 13.33% required ECT after non-response or partial response to lorazepam. Only one case after diagnosis with catatonia following organic condition was referred to the Medicine Department. The duration of hospital stay was found to be significantly different [F= 3.58 (>3.35)] among different diagnoses groups (mood disorders, psychotic disorders and others) when the catatonic severity, lorazepam dosage and the duration of treatment response were assessed among those groups using multiple one-way ANOVA.CONCLUSIONSThis study has yielded important findings regarding the age and socio-demographic profiles of the patients, family history of psychiatric disorders, clinical features, and significance of diagnostic variations in relation to the treatment with lorazepam and ECT in catatonic patients in the psychiatric indoor in a tertiary care rural hospital of Eastern India.