No abstract available.

No abstract available.
Dexamethasone* ; Psychotic Disorders*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Religion*

No abstract available.
Gyeongsangnam-do* ; Psychopathology*

No abstract available.

Many investigators are trying to elucidate the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders on the basis of neuroendocrine responses to stimulation or perturbation. Dexamethasone(DEX) suppression has been the most widely utilized as the prototypical challenge test. Dexamethasone suppression test(DST) has proven to be valuable in diagnosing the depressive spectrum disorder. Reported specificity of diagnosis of depression is relatively high, but sensitivity is limited. Some researchers used the combination of dexamethasone and corticotropin releasing hormone(CRH) in order to improve the sensitivity. They reported that combined DEX/CRH test, i.e., we administered the insulin instead of CRH. Total subjects were 28(7 normal controls, 10 manic patients, 11 schizophrenic, patients). Subject were token DEX(1.5mg p.o.) at 11 p.m., insulin 16 hours later(0.1 unit/kg i.v.). Five blood samples for the determination of cortisol and ACTH were serially drawn at 15 minute interval. The results are as following : 1) The cortisol an ACTH levels of manic subjects increased following insulin administration. Manic subjects showed higher levels of cortisol and ACTH than schizophrenic and normal control subjects. The cortisol and ACTH levels of schizophrenic and normal control subjects did not show gross changes. 2) The sensitivity of the test was lower than that of reported DEX/CRH test.
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone ; Depression ; Dexamethasone ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Hydrocortisone ; Insulin ; Research Personnel ; Sensitivity and Specificity

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence, primary causes, and management of insomnia newly admitted patients in a university hospital. Subjects consisted of 168 adult patients (95 men and 73 women, 88 medical and 94 surgical patients) newly admitted to Gyeongsang National University Hospital from September 7 through September 27, 1996. Sleep patterns of all subjects in the usual nights before admission(UN), the previous night to admission(PN), the night on admission(ON), and the 5th night after admission(5N) were investigated using the Korean version of the St. Mary's Hospital Sleep Questionaire. In addition, all insomnia patients and their doctors and nurses in charge were interviewed by psychiatric residents. Additionally, their medical records were reviewed. Prevalence of insomnia were 22.6% in the UN, 42.9% in PN, 51.8% in ON, and 43.5% in 5N. The prevalence of insomnia was significantly increased immediately before and after admission. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of insomnia by age and sex. The most ammon primary causes of insomnia were somatic symptoms and psychological factors in PN, somatic syptoms and noise in ON and 5n. Only 17 (10.1%) of insomnia patients took medicstions for insomnia control(analgesics in 15, hypnotics in 2). These results shorred that the prevalence of insomnia was significantly increased on hospitalization due to somatic symptoms, environmental factors, and psychological factors, but nearly none were adequately managed.
Adult ; Female ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Hypnotics and Sedatives ; Male ; Medical Records ; Noise ; Prevalence* ; Psychology ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders* ; United Nations

No abstract available.
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1* ; Echocardiography*

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Liver biopsy has been used to evaluate the degree of hepatic fibrosis in patients with chronic liver diseases. It is important to assess liver fibrosis when following the course of chronic liver diseases. Histopathological examination of percutaneous biopsy specimens is invasive and is also of questionable value because of the heterogenous distribution of pathological changes in the liver. Therefore, non-nvasive methods to determine the progress of liver fibrosis are needed. Serum hyaluronic acid and type IV collagen are known to be related to hepatic fibrosis. This study was performed to evaluate the clinical usefulness of serum hyaluronic acid and type IV collagen measurement as a differential point in patients with chronic liver diseases and early cirrhosis. METHODS: This study included 109 patients with chronic liver diseases caused by various etiologies. Liver biopsy and histopathological classification were done in all patients. Serum hyaluronic acid and type IV collagen were measured by one-tep sandwich binding protein assay and one-tep sandwich enzyme immunoassay. RESULTS: The concentrations of hyaluronic acid and type IV collagen in the early cirrhosis group (208.5+/-186.4 ng/mL, 242.1+/-162.8 ng/mL) were significantly higher (p<0.01) than those in the normal and fatty liver group (26.3+/-21.7 ng/mL, 79.2+/-28.8 ng/mL), mild chronic hepatitis group (22.8+/-15.4 ng/mL, 125.5+/-79.7 ng/mL), moderate to severe hepatitis group (66.3+/-60.5 ng/mL, 148.5+/-78.7 ng/mL). At the cutoff value of 100 ng/mL for hyaluronic acid and 200 ng/mL for type IV collagen, the sensitivities were 66.7% and 55.6%, and specifities were 82.9% and 89%, and diagnostic efficiencies were 78.9% and 80.7% respectively for discriminating patients with cirrhosis (4 points) from the mild to severe fibrosis (0~3 points). CONCLUSIONS: The serum levels of hyaluronic acid and type IV collagen may be sensitive markers of fibrotic process in chronic liver diseases and useful biochemical markers in differentiation of the patients with early cirrhosis from those with chronic liver diseases.
Biomarkers ; Biopsy ; Carrier Proteins ; Classification ; Collagen Type IV* ; Fatty Liver ; Fibrosis ; Hepatitis ; Hepatitis, Chronic* ; Humans ; Hyaluronic Acid* ; Immunoenzyme Techniques ; Liver Cirrhosis* ; Liver Diseases ; Liver*

OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to investigate the relationship of insight level with temperament and character pattern in chronic male schizophrenics. In addition, we tried to examine demographic variables and illness-related variables which may affect the level of insight. METHODS: To assess insight level by psychiatrists, Insight and Treatment Attitudes Question-naire(ITAQ), Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder(SUMD) were applied. Temperament and character patterns were evaluated by the Korean version of Cloninger's self-rated Temperament and Character Inventory(TCI). The authors investigated the correlations between insight level, and scores of temperament and character dimensions. Data on the demographic and illness-related variabres for the subjects were gathered from hospital records and clinical interviews. A total of 113 patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV criteria was analyzed. The insight level was dichotomized into good(median value of 11) and poor insight group(<11). RESULTS: 1) There was a significant difference between good insightgroup and poor insight group in novelty seeking dimension in TCI. 2) There was a significant negative correlation between novelty seeking scores by TCI and insight scores by ITAQ(rs:Spearman correlation coefficient=-0.20, p<0.05). There was a positive correlation between harm avoidance scores by TCI and insight scores by ITAQ(rs=0.22, p<0.05). 3) Significant differences between good and poor insight groups were identified in diverse clinical variables such as age at onset of illness, mode of hospitalization, duration of illness, current length of stay, and dosage of drug. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that high scores in the temperament dimension of novelty seeking and low scores in the temperament dimension of harm avoidance may influence poor insight in patients with chronic male schizophrenia. Therefore it is clinically valuable for us to assess the pattern of temperament at the stage of insight evaluation. The authors suggest that further studies on temperament and character in schizophrenia is needed.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ; Hospital Records ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Length of Stay ; Male* ; Psychiatry ; Schizophrenia* ; Temperament*