Self-help, mutual aid and chronic patients' clubs in Croatia, Yugoslavia: discussion paper.

This paper describes the clubs for patients with hypertension which have operated effectively in parts of Croatia and Slovenia (Yugoslavia) for more than 15 years, with many thousands of patients enrolling voluntarily. Based on the principle of self-help, yet involving the regular participation of members of a patient's own primary health team, they increase compliance with long-term treatment regimens and improve the quality of life. Such programmes are capable of reducing the amount of time devoted by a medical practitioner while increasing the effectiveness of treatments. If they are to succeed, it is essential to ensure regular club meetings, social activities and encouragement to each individual member to find a role and to continue attending for as long as possible. A new life style and consequent benefits to health are obtained only through long membership.

The incidence of schizophrenia in Croatia.

Hospital-based annual incidence rates for schizophrenia in Croatia over 1965-84 did not change significantly. Rates ranged from 0.21 to 0.22 per 1,000 population (0.26-0.29 per 1,000 population aged over 15). Factors that could influence these rates were analysed, but it appeared that the rates were a true reflection of the incidence rate of schizophrenia in the Croatian population.

Characteristics of male and female schizophrenics at first admission.

Based on information from a case register, patient age and diagnosis at first admission are analysed in a Croatian cohort of schizophrenics first admitted in 1972 and followed up through the register for 12 years. Diagnosis was analysed on the same basis and over the same period. Although the male and female differences in incidence rates for schizophrenia were not large, hospital incidence rates in younger age groups were higher in males. Males were also more commonly diagnosed as schizophrenic at first admission, females more frequently receiving diagnoses of affective psychosis and other organic psychosis, except for alcohol-induced psychosis.

Age of disease onset in Croatia's hospitalised schizophrenics.

Age at onset was determined in a sample of 360 patients representative of the 8069 schizophrenics hospitalised in SR Croatia. The 95% confidence interval for mean age at onset was 22.9-26.7 years. The difference between males and females was not significant, unlike the age difference between the sexes reported for age at first admission for schizophrenia. Results may be influenced by attrition of the original population of patients.

Selected aspects of the epidemiology of psychoses in Croatia, Yugoslavia. IV. Representative sample of Croatia and results of the survey.

This is the fourth paper in a series on the epidemiology of psychoses in Croatia, Yugoslavia. Data collected from 1960-1975 on a representative sample of the population of the study area, including the Istrian Peninsula and the northern Adriatic littoral, and the control area, the rest of Croatia, indicate that functional psychotic illnesses are more frequent in the study area, with the highest rates in older population groups. The finding is not associated with coastal or inland residence, with educational level, or with occupational group. Other diseases in excess in the study area are diabetes mellitus, psoriasis, and alcoholism. Nutritional disorders are about equally distributed between study and control areas. Data on extent of cigarette smoking was more prevalent in the study area, cases of functional psychoses smoked no more than the general population.