No abstract available.
Defense Mechanisms* ; Ego* ; Humans ; Mood Disorders* ; Neurotic Disorders* ; Schizophrenia*

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to compare the coping strategies among healthy controls, psychotic and neurotic patients and to evaluate the predictors of suicidal ideation. METHODS: The study population consisted of 115 outpatients in Ulsan University Hospital and 160 healthy controls. They filled out self-report questionnaires including demographics and validated psychiatric scales for depression, perceived stress, coping strategies, and suicide ideation. An analysis of the covariance was used to compare the clinical data among the groups. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to estimate the effects of coping strategies and depression on the risk for suicidal ideation. RESULTS: Compared to the controls, the psychosis group used less active coping, and the neurosis group used more self-blame coping strategies. In healthy controls, suicidal ideation was predicted by depression, female gender, and using more self-blame coping. Although planning in psychosis was a protective factor, acceptance and self-blame in psychosis and behavioral disengagement in neurosis was a risk factor for suicidal ideation. CONCLUSION: Patients with psychotic and neurotic disorders use different coping strategies to deal with their distress and some of those are risk factors for suicidal ideation. Therefore, improving coping skills will be helpful for preventing suicide by alleviating the levels of stress and providing more effective emotion regulation.
Adaptation, Psychological ; Demography ; Depression* ; Female ; Humans ; Neurotic Disorders ; Outpatients ; Protective Factors ; Psychotic Disorders ; Risk Factors ; Suicidal Ideation* ; Suicide ; Ulsan ; Weights and Measures

Very little information is available regarding psychiatry in North Korea, which is based on the legacy of Soviet psychiatry. This paper reviews the characteristics of psychiatry in former socialist countries and discusses its implications for North Korean psychiatry. Under socialism, psychiatric disorders were attributed primarily to neurophysiologic or neurobiological origins. Psychosocial or psychodynamic etiology was denied or distorted in line with the political ideology of the Communist Party. Psychiatry was primarily concerned with psychotic disorders, and this diagnostic category was sometimes applied based on political considerations. Neurotic disorders were ignored by psychiatry or were regarded as the remnants of capitalism. Several neurotic disorders characterized by high levels of somatization were considered to be neurological or physical in nature. The majority of "mental patients" were institutionalized for a long periods in large-scale psychiatric hospitals. Treatment of psychiatric disorders depended largely on a few outdated biological therapies. In former socialist countries, psychodynamic psychotherapy was not common, and psychiatric patients were likely to experience social stigma. According to North Korean doctors living in South Korea, North Korean psychiatry is heavily influenced by the aforementioned traditions of psychiatry. During the post-socialist transition, the suicide rate in many of these countries dramatically increased. Given such mental health crises in post-socialist transitional societies, the field of psychiatry may face major challenges in a future unified Korea.
Biological Therapy ; Capitalism ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Humans ; Korea ; Mental Health ; Neurotic Disorders ; Psychotherapy, Psychodynamic ; Psychotic Disorders ; Social Stigma ; Socialism ; Suicide

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at identifying the etiological background, symptomatic expressions, defense styles and coping strategies related to hahn. METHOD: The subjects were given a questionnaire for demographic data, life experiences and psychological and physical symptoms, Bond's questionnaire of defense style, and Weisman's scale for coping strategies and scales for severity of hahn and hwabyung. The subjects were 110 normal healthy adults and 151 patients with neurotic disorders, diagnosed with ICD-9. RESULTS: More vivid hahn was found in the married women, the less educated, and those from a low socio-economic state. In the area of etiological life experiences, hahn is significantly related with an unhappy and frustrated marital life, unsatisfactory filial Piety, Poor family background, poverty, little education, a hard life since childhood, betrayal, failure in business, personality problems, injustice in society and resignation to fate. Hahn, unresolved and accumulated, was believed to cause various psychological and physical illnesses. In many cases hahn was corhad been dealt with by simple suppression and being dependent on religious faith or sharing and communicating with people. More people considered hahn as one of the etiologies of hwabyung, a chronic anger syndrome. Hahn of patients with hwabyung was more serious than that of those without hwabyung. Symptoms of hahn were - in addition to various symptoms of depression, anxiety and other neurotic conditions or somatization - a mass in the epigastrium, sighing, something pushing-up in the chest, paranoid ideas and hyprochondria sis nor hygochondriacal ideas. On the other hand, hypersensitivity and irritability were less significant. Defense styles and coping strategies related with hahn were somatization, splitting-projection, passive-aggressiveness, incorporation, primitive idealization, stimulus reduction, self-pity and shared-concerns and dependency. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that hahn is an unique emotional condition which is characterized by culture-related somatization symptoms, paranoid ideas and hypochondriasis, in addition to general neurotic symptoms such as depression and anxiety and related somatic symptoms.
Adult ; Anger ; Anxiety ; Commerce ; Depression ; Education ; Female ; Hand ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Hypochondriasis ; International Classification of Diseases ; Life Change Events ; Neurotic Disorders ; Poverty ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Thorax ; Weights and Measures

We searched databases and used various online resources to identify and systematically review all articles on occupational psychiatric disorders among Korean workers published in English and Korean before 2009. Three kinds of occupational psychiatric disorders were studied: disorders related to job stress and mental illness, psychiatric symptoms emerging in victims of industrial injuries, and occupational psychiatric disorders compensated by Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance (IACI). Korea does not maintain official statistical records for occupational psychiatric disorders, but several studies have estimated the number of occupational psychiatric disorders using the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service (COMWEL, formerly KLWC) database. The major compensated occupational psychiatric disorders in Korea were "personality and behavioral disorders due to brain disease, damage, and dysfunction", "other mental disorders due to brain damage and dysfunction and to physical diseases", "reactions to severe stress and adjustment disorders", and "depressive episodes". The most common work-related psychiatric disorders, excluding accidents, were "neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders" followed by "mood disorders".
Accidents, Occupational/*psychology ; Brain Damage, Chronic/epidemiology ; Depression/epidemiology ; Humans ; Mood Disorders/epidemiology ; Neurotic Disorders/epidemiology ; Occupational Diseases/*epidemiology/psychology ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; Somatoform Disorders/epidemiology ; Stress, Psychological/*epidemiology/psychology ; Workers' Compensation/*economics

INTRODUCTIONIn this study, the pathways patients followed to treatment in an Insomnia Clinic in a psychiatric hospital were compared over 2 periods. The time interval to specialist referrals and patient clinical presentations were also studied. The aim was to better understand referrers' knowledge, needs and accessibility to services.

MATERIALS AND METHODSA retrospective review of cases seen between 2002 and 2005 was compared with an earlier review of cases referred between 1997 and 2000. The information gathered from medical records was similar for the 2 periods.

RESULTSThere were no significant differences in the socio-demographic profiles of patients in the 2 periods. Primary Insomnia was diagnosed in 48.2% of the first period cohort and in 47.5% of the second period cohort. However, among the remaining patients there was a shift from more depressive disorders in the first period to neurosis in the second period. Significantly, there was no difference in alcohol or substance abuse or dependence between the 2 periods. More than three-quarters of the patients had received treatment prior to the referral and for 51.8% in both periods, the providers were family physicians. Treatment was mainly pharmacotherapy with an increase in the use of Sleep Hygiene measures in the second period.

CONCLUSIONThere is a need for continuing medical education on insomnia as well as a need to highlight the risks of untreated insomnia and assessment for other psychiatric disorders in this common complaint.

Adult ; Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Depressive Disorder ; complications ; diagnosis ; Female ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neurotic Disorders ; complications ; diagnosis ; Patient Acceptance of Health Care ; psychology ; Referral and Consultation ; Retrospective Studies ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders ; complications ; diagnosis ; therapy ; Young Adult