Showing papers by "Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth published in 1978"

Psychiatric Screening in a Medical Clinic: An Evaluation of a Self-report Inventory

Abstract: • A self-report symptom inventory, the Hopkins Symptom Checklist, was used as a screening test for psychiatric disorder in a group of 82 new patients in a university hospital outpatient medical clinic, and the results were compared with interviewer diagnoses. The prevalence of psychiatric disorder in the group was high (83%). Both parametric (discriminant function analysis) and nonparametric (contingency table) methods produced screening results from the patient self-ratings that were statistically significant but of limited accuracy in separating psychiatrically ill from well patients. Comparison of patient and interviewer ratings of symptoms indicated substantial agreement, suggesting that the screening accuracy of the symptom inventory is limited by the absence of historical and observational data.

Minor Tranquilizers: Clinical Correlates of Use in an Urban Population

Abstract: • Rapid growth in the production and prescription of minor tranquilizers has stimulated increasing concern that we live in an "overmedicated" society. Data regarding drug use from a health survey in Oakland, Calif, show that (1) 20% took a minor tranquilizer or sedative during the previous year, 10% daily for a week or more; (2) use was related directly to the amount of distress and dysfunction, to psychologic more than to other types of disturbance, but not to situational stress alone; and (3) taking tranquilizers was only one aspect of a complex pattern of coping behaviors including the almost universal use of some medication, most often a "nonpsychotropic" type.