DELINEATION OF ACUTE AND TRANSIENT PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS IN A DEVELOPING-COUNTRY SETTING

Background. We examined whether acute transient psychoses can be disti nguished from schizophrenia and the affective disorders. Method. We st udied 46 cases of nonaffective acute psychosis in the Chandigarh Acute Psychosis Study. With respect to separation from schizophrenia, we ex amined the distribution of duration of the episode. With respect to se paration from affective disorders, we assessed the frequency of affect ive symptoms. Results. Duration was bimodal, suggesting the presence o f two distinct conditions of short and long duration. Affective sympto ms were minimal, suggesting that these were not atypical affective syn dromes. Conclusions. Acute transient psychoses conform neither with sc hizophrenia of brief duration nor with atypical affective psychosis, a nd thus require separate classification as proposed in the ICD-10.