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Preoccupation with body shape and weight is characteristic of both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Despite their diagnostic and clinical significance, evidence on the nature of the underlying beliefs is relatively scarce. We used the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS) to assess the degree of delusionality of body image beliefs in seventy-two participants: 39 with anorexia and 33 with bulimia nervosa. We also investigated the relationship between body image delusionality and other clinical characteristics in eating disorders. Only patients with anorexia nervosa (28.8%) had delusional body image beliefs, whereas overvalued ideas appeared to be frequent in both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Body image delusionality in anorexia nervosa was associated with restrictive eating pathology, early onset of the disorder and body dissatisfaction, whereas in the bulimia group it was linked to shorter duration of the illness, more intense dieting behaviors and specific psychological factors: ineffectiveness and maturity fears. Results suggest that a delusional variant of anorexia nervosa represents the one end of a continuum of insight among patients with eating disorders. Categorization of patients with eating disorders based on the level of delusionality of body image beliefs could facilitate further research on the role of insight deficits in these disorders., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The present study attempted to investigate the clinically important broader dimensions of clinical characteristics of delusions, through multivariate analysis, in a pure sample of elderly unipolar delusional depressives as well as to test their external validity against a set of demographic, anamnestic and psychopathological validators., Methods: Fifty inpatients suffering from psychotic major depression (PMD) in the context of major depressive disorder, 60 years old or older, were assessed on the basis of SCID IV, HRSD, MMSE and by three-point ordinal scales of 12 clinical, intrinsic or relational characteristics of delusions tested for their inter-rater reliability., Results: Principal Component Analysis resulted in the extraction of five factors, jointly accounting for 69.7% of the total variance. The five factors were interpreted as representing the dimensions of delusional strength, acute upsetting, delusional organization, incomprehensibility and incitation to actions. Most of the factors were differentially associated with patients' demographic, anamnestic and clinical variables., Conclusion: Our results overlap in part with those of another similar study in delusional depressives of all age-ranges, differing, however, in respects possibly attributable to peculiarities of elderly depressives. Overall, the findings of the present study contribute to the further elucidation of major clinical dimensions of delusions in PMD in the elderly and the testing of their external validity., ((c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

An Erratum has been published for this article in International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 16(11) 2001, 1085–1091. Background Psychotic (delusional) major depression (PMD) in the elderly is a common condition in inpatient settings. There is evidence that late age onset depressives are more likely to be psychotic. Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency, sociodemographic, and clinical characteristics of PMD in hospitalized elderly depressives. Methods The sample consisted of 118 elderly patients consecutively admitted at three different clinics. All patients fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for major depression disorder and were diagnosed on the basis of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). The subjects were also assessed using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a physical health rating scale. Results PMD was positively associated with age of onset of depression. The PMD patients were also more severely depressed, more psychomotorically retarded and referred more past psychotic depressive episodes. Furthermore, age at onset influenced the type of delusions, so that PMD patients with aged over 60 at onset expressed delusions of hypochondriacal and nihilistic content more frequently. Conclusions The results of our study demonstrated that PMD in the elderly has a later age at onset. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Delusional Misidentification Syndromes (DMSs) have been observed in a variety of psychiatric and other medical conditions but they seem to be strongly associated with schizophrenia since they occur predominantly in the context of paranoid schizophrenia. Previous studies about a neuropsychological relationship between DMSs and schizophrenia have implicated cognitive functions performed by bilateral frontal and right hemisphere in both schizophrenia and DMS, but there are mainly case reports, lacking the appropriate controls. Aim of the present study was to investigate whether DMS in paranoid schizophrenia is mediated by a distinct neuropsychological substrate indicative of differential bilateral frontal and right hemisphere dysfunction. Materials and methods The sample of the study included 44 right-handed schizophrenic patients, 22 of them with DMSs and 22 without previous history of DMMs, matched for gender, age, education, severity and duration of illness. Both groups were on medication with comparable doses of atypical antipsychotics. The neuropsychological battery used was designed to assess cognitive functions mainly associated with right hemisphere and frontal lobe areas. DMMs were active and their counterparts were also deluded at the time of neuropsychological assessment. Results No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups in terms of their mean performance in all neuropsychological tests. Both groups showed evidence of dysfunction in frontal and right cerebral regions. Conclusions Our findings show evidence of right hemisphere and frontal lobe dysfunction of equal severity in both groups of paranoid schizophrenic patients with and without DMS and suggest that DMS and paranoid schizophrenia share the same neuropsychological substrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has been established that depressed patients manifest a higher risk of committing suicide. The role of delusional experiences accompanying depressive symptomatology as a risk factor for suicidal behaviour has been investigated but the results are inconsistent. Method: In the present study, 40 elderly depressed inpatients with psychotic features (DSM-IV criteria) were compared to 64 elderly depressed patients without such features in terms of suicide attempts. Results: The results of univariate and multivariate analyses were negative: Psychotic and nonpsychotic depressed patients did not differ with respect to attempted suicide. Conclusion: The results of the present study support the notion that psychotic features do not increase the risk for the elderly depressed patients to attempt suicide. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]