Diagnostic stability of Acute and Transient Psychotic Disorder: A Long-term outcome study

Abstract

Introduction:Diagnostic stability of Acute and Transient Psychotic Disorders (ATPD) has been depicted as between 33-100%, with Indian studies showing range of 63.2-73.3%.

Aim: To see the diagnostic stability of patients with ATPD over a period of 9-13 years while constantly assessing other sociodemographic and clinical parameters.  

Methodology: An retrospective cohort study was conducted at Department of Psychiatry  of a tertiary care teaching hospital in northern India in October-November 2021. All patients with an initial diagnosis of ATPD of either gender, above 18 years of age who presented from January 2008 to December 2012, were enlisted. An 8 items questionnaire equipped to collect necessary details  was used to explore various aspects of the illness including present status.

Results: A total of 98 patients were enrolled, out of which majority belonged to Chandigarh, were females and of the age group of 21-30 years. Psychotic symptoms (79.6%) were more prominent than affective symptoms. The diagnosis was revised in 66.3% (32.6% to bipolar affective disorder and 15.3% to schizophrenia predominately) of the patient population, yielding diagnostic stability as 33.7%. In a 9-13 year of follow up period, 82.7% of the patients were maintaining well; either in remission (80.6%) or had minimum symptoms. 39.8% patients were still on medications.There was signficant correlation between income groups and psychotic and affective symptoms (p 0.001).

Conclusion: The diagnostic stability of ATPD over a period of 9-13 years of initial diagnosis is 33.7 % and most common revised diagnoses were bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia.