CONTEXT Childbirth has an important influence on the onset and course of bipolar affective disorder, and it is well established that there may be a delay of many years before receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder following an initial episode of psychiatric illness. OBJECTIVE To study to what extent psychiatric disorders with postpartum onset are early manifestations of an underlying bipol...

Up to one third of patients with cancer will develop an affective disorder (generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive illness or an adjustment disorder) [1–5] regardless of disease stage [6, 7]. Key psychological factors include the following: difficulties patients have in coming to terms with the inherent uncertainty of their prognosis; a lack of practical or psychological support from re...

BACKGROUND Studies suggest a role for cardiovascular fitness in the prevention of affective disorders. AIMS To determine whether cardiovascular fitness at age 18 is associated with future risk of serious affective illness. METHOD Population-based Swedish cohort study of male conscripts (n = 1 117 292) born in 1950-1987 with no history of mental illness who were followed for 3-40 years. Data...

With on exception, previous studies examining the familial relationship between schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and schizophrenia have compared rates of SPD in relatives of probands with schizophrenia versus control probands. In the Roscommon Family Study, an epidemiologically based family study of major psychiatric disorders conducted in the west of Ireland, we used a Cox proportional h...

The clinical value of information on the risk of future psychiatric illness in women who have experienced puerperal (post-partum) psychosis has been limited by inconsistencies in terminology and nosology. Here we report rates of subsequent puerperal and non-puerperal episodes, in a well characterised sample of women diagnosed with clearly defined bipolar affective puerperal psychosis (n=103). O...

Remitting illness such as affective or schizoaffective disorder is appropriately described by a vulnerability model. Clinical evidence is reviewed here to clarify the relationship between the affective-disorder-like and schizophrenia-like symptoms in a schizoaffective episode. A model is proposed which treats vulnerability to schizoaffective and schizophreniform psychosis as the result of two f...

Impairments in social cognition are now recognized as core illness features in psychotic and affective disorders. Despite the significant disability caused by social cognitive abnormalities, treatments for this symptom dimension are lacking. Here, we describe the evidence demonstrating abnormalities in social cognition in schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder, as well a...

The separation of manic depressive illness from schizophrenia was an important diagnostic task undertaken early on by Kraepelin (1896, 1919) who saw schizophrenia (“dementia praecox”) as a psychotic illness and a thought disorder, characterised by a steady downhill in cognition leading to chronic dementia, whereas manic depressive illness was seen as an episodic affective disorder with intermit...

The separation of manic depressive illness from schizophrenia was an important diagnostic task undertaken early on by Kraepelin (1896, 1919) who saw schizophrenia (“dementia praecox”) as a psychotic illness and a thought disorder, characterised by a steady downhill in cognition leading to chronic dementia, whereas manic depressive illness was seen as an episodic affective disorder with intermit...

Sociodemographic, clinical and outcome characteristics of 29 cases who had the diagnosis of schizoaffective psychosis were studied. On the basis of longitudinal course of the illness, 2 distinct subgroup of patients could be delineated. Patients with episodic illness were more akin to affective disorders while those with continuous course of illness were conceptually closer to schizophrenia. Co...