SUMMARY
A clinical study of 276 patients diagnosed as Hysteria in the Department of Psychiatry, Unit-2, Christian Medical College, Vellore, during the period of 1970—1974 is described.
This group of 276 patients formed 10.81% of the total new consultations during this period. 61.2% of these were females. The peak age of onset was 10-20 years. The majority were married. 75% of them had conversion symptoms, 20.3% had dissociative states, and 4.7% had both features. 52.5% showed possible precipitating factors. 66.0% h i d features of extraversion in their personality make up. 14.1% showed evidence of parental deprivation. There was over-representation of the early born. Somatic symptoms (aches and pains) was the most common mode of presentation. The other common clinical manifestations were fainting attacks, “fits”, vomiting, involuntary movements and paralysis of limbs. The immediate follow up showed that 11 patients recovered, 120 improved, 3 were unchanged and 1 patient became worse. Only 93 patients could be contacted for the final follow up. Among these, 28 recovered completely; 50 were improved; 2 became worse and 2 died.
It is emphasized that Hysteria continues to remain a clinical entity.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (218.7 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- GUZE S. B., PERLEY M. J. Observations on the natural history of hysteria. Am J Psychiatry. 1963 Apr;119:960–965. doi: 10.1176/ajp.119.10.960. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hare E. H., Price J. S. Birth rank in schizophrenia: with a consideration of the bias due to changes in birth-rate. Br J Psychiatry. 1970 Apr;116(533):409–420. doi: 10.1192/bjp.116.533.409. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lewis A. The survival of hysteria. Psychol Med. 1975 Feb;5(1):9–12. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700007169. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- PURTELL J. J., ROBINS E., COHEN M. E. Observations on clinical aspects of hysteria; a quantitative study of 50 hysteria patients and 156 control subjects. J Am Med Assoc. 1951 Jul 7;146(10):902–909. doi: 10.1001/jama.1951.03670100022006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]