Determining the prognosis in the involutional psychoses

Summary

• 1. The possibility of establishing a criterion for prognosis in the involutional psychoses has been discussed. Figures were based on the total female admissions to the Pilgrim State Hospital diagnosed under involutional syndromes during the fiscal year of 1936–37.

• 2. Statistics included: type of diagnosis, age on admission, family history, personality, onset of psychosis in relation to the time of admission, history of suicidal attempt, influence of the climacterium, and parole from the hospital.

• 3. The results were generally unproductive except that it might be said that prognosis is favorable to a greater extent in the melancholic type than it is in the paranoid. It is distinctly favorable in those patients who have made a definite suicidal attempt prior to hospitalization.