ABSTRACT
The authors stress the importance of differentiated, detailed psychopathologic theory with use of differentiated psychopathological dictionary. With practical use it can not compete with simple scales, inclusion and exclusion criteria, with operational techniques. It has only limited use in research, which must respect scientific principles. But it can bring the scientists nearer to understanding of "what" is psychosis and "what" is neurosis, and so on: so it favours "what" to "how".
Subject(s)
Neurotic Disorders/diagnosis , Psycholinguistics , Psychotic Disorders/diagnosis , Diagnosis, Differential , HumansABSTRACT
The authors elaborated a brief questionnaire of mental health of old people. They discuss the the suitability of the self-evaluating part of the questionnaire for detection of mental disorders. Hundred and forty subjects above 65 years of age were examined: living in their homes or hospitalized at the psychiatric clinic. The mean score of the self-evaluating part of the questionnaire in the group of healthy and mentally ill differs significantly. The sensitivity of the self-evaluating part for the non-differentiated group of patients is 62.07% and the specificity is 73.08%. Self-evaluation with the best reliability differentiates from healthy subjects the group of depressive patients (sensitivity 82.76%). It was revealed that self-evaluation can help also with detection of dementia (sensitivity (61.11%). An enhanced discriminating sensitivity of the questionnaire is expected from a combination of self-evaluation with items expressing objective evaluation. The authors emphasize the possibility to entrust the questionnaire to paramedical workers, and its non-pretentious character which makes it suitable for old people.
