IS THERE A PARTICULAR VULNERABILITY TO STRESS IN PATIENTS WITH GRAVES-DISEASE

Using a consecutive sample of 19 patients (2 male and 17 female) with decompensated Graves' disease, and against the background of a controv ersial scientific discussion, we investigated the following questions: 1. Are there indications of an increased predisposition to stress in these patients (or a subgroup) and 2. Is there a link between this and differences in the development of psychopathological complaints? The status of the psychical symptomatology was evaluated using self-assess ment questionnaires (STAI X1, X2, BDI, SCL-90-R) at the time of the hy perthyrosis, and after 3 months of and 1 year of antithyroid drug ther apy. On the basis of a systematic evaluation of depth-psychology-orien ted interviews, a relatively little psychologically stressed group (A) could be distinguished from a relatively severely psychically stresse d group (B). In the results from the lists of psychopathological sympt oms, group B showed clearly higher summated values, which also remaine d at a clearly higher level after normalization of metabolism. By inco rporating an individual evaluation of the questionnaires, 2 patients c ould be extracted who, contrary to expectations, showed a worsening of their psychical symptomatology under normalization of metabolism. The results of the depth-psychology-oriented interviews, as well as also the psychological test investigations, support the hypothesis that the earlier differences in research results can be explained by shortcomi ngs in methodology, and that a clear indication of a predisposition to stress is also shown by a subgroup of the Graves' disease patients (i n our sample 63%) under euthyrosis.