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| « Previous1234567Next »..It is interesting that our sample contained a relatively large proportion of cases of acute psychotic disorder, relative to schizophrenia (almost 50%, compared with only -30% in the report by Singh et al.10). This suggests that we cannot exclude an increased incidence of acute psychotic disorders in the Army. Although it is known that most mental illnesses resulting from deployment or combat exposure are minor,1 the general stresses associated with serving in the Army may be of etiological significance. In theory, our finding that 24 cases (50%) occurred in the first 4 years after subjects joined the Army might support this (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, the possibility of making a more robust inference is complicated by the biases associated with a small sample size and lack of standardized assessments. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_20 0612/ai_n17195611/pg_3/?tag=content;col1 BBC is doing study on the issue of schizoprenia. I belive Army is the best place to start. |
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| The characteristics of the eight personnel who remained in service were as follows (Table II). The majority of patients were male (n = 7; 87.5%), and the mean age was 30.1 years (range, 21-40 years; SD, 7.7 years). Their ranks were as follows: one major, two sergeants, one corporal, three lance corporals, and one private, with the occupations of the noncommissioned personnel being three gunners, one medic, one chef, one supplier, and one infantryman. The mean length in service was relatively long, at 145 months (range, 25-288 months; SD, 98 months). There was a mean duration of untreated psychosis of 9.5 months (range, 0.3-33.3 months; SD, 14.8 months), and the diagnoses included six (75%) acute polymorphic psychotic disorders (code F23) and two (25%) delusional disorders (code F22). The mean inpatient stay was relatively brief, at 30.5 days (range, 7-115 days; SD, 36.3 days). Only one patient (12.5%) had a history of psychiatric (nonpsychotic) symptoms before enlistment, with seven (87.5%) having no psychiatric history at all before the onset of their psychotic illness. Is Schizophrenia Less Common in the British Army? The sample characteristics were as might be expected, given the constitution of the Army; patients were predominantly male and of lower rank. The finding of a mean annual incidence of 0.11 cases per 1,000 for nonaffective psychoses in the British Army is difficult to interpret in itself. However, our value of 0.03 cases per 1,000 for the mean annual incidence of schizophrenia in the Army (which is effectively a male-specific rate) is considerably lower than that yielded by other epidemiological studies in the United Kingdom. Brewin et al.,9 for example, found an incidence of 0.09 cases per 1,000 in a Nottingham cohort. Notwithstanding the small sample size and the recognized tendency for acute psychotic disorder to be reclassified as schizophrenia over time,10 our finding supports the hypothesis that schizophrenia is under-represented in the Bri ... |
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