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Acute psychotic reactions in Caribbean-born patients1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Roland Littlewood  and
Maurice Lipsedge
Roland Littlewood*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London, and the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
Maurice Lipsedge
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London, and the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
*
2Address for correspondence: Dr R. Littlewood, Wolfson College, Oxford OX2 6UD.
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Synopsis

A prospective study of patients with religious delusions identified 24 West Indian and West African patients. Those who had none of Schneider's first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia (principally West Indians) differed from those who did by virtue of early religious commitment, life-long religious experiences, an acute admission precipitated by social events, a greater chance of having their diagnosis changed, less than 10 different PSE syndromes, the absence of ‘twentieth-century’ delusions, and the presentation of malevolent witchcraft as the sole explanation of the episode. It is suggested that this group can usefully be considered as demonstrating an acute psychotic reaction of the type previously described in Africa and the Caribbean.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 1981 , pp. 303 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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Footnotes

1

Part of this research was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, 1977, a summary of which was published in the Bulletin of the College in November, 1977, under the title ‘Acute psychotic reactions in immigrants’.

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