Hostname: page-component-76dd75c94c-7vt9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T08:19:36.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diagnostic Classification of First-Ever Admissions to Chainama Hills Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

G. G. C. Rwegellera  and
C. C. Mambwe
G. G. C. Rwegellera
Affiliation:
School of Medicine, University of Zambia, PO Box RW 110, Lusaka, Zambia
C. C. Mambwe
Affiliation:
School of Medicine, University of Zambia, PO Box RW 110, Lusaka, Zambia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

All new female indigenous Zambian patients (180) admitted to Chainama Hills Hospital from 1 June 1974 to 31 May 1975 were seen by the authors and given a firm diagnosis before they were started on treatment. The diagnostic classification of these patients was compared to that of a similar group of patients (163) admitted to the same hospital from 1 June 1973 to 31 May 1974. Forty-two per cent of the patients in 1974/75 were given a diagnosis of depression as compared to 26 per cent in 1973/74; 14 per cent of those in 1974/75 had a diagnosis of schizophrenia as compared to 21 per cent in 1973/74, and 3 per cent of the patients in 1974/75 fell into the group of ‘not yet diagnosed’ as opposed to 27 per cent in 1973/74. The ‘acute transient psychoses' were noted for their relative rarity in the two groups. A plea is made for all psychiatrists working in Africa to give diagnosis the importance it deserves.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 130 , Issue 6 , June 1977 , pp. 573 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlijah, W. K. (1970) Personal communication.Google Scholar
Assael, M. I., Namboze, J. M., German, G. A. & Bennett, J. F. (1972) Psychiatric disturbances during pregnancy in a rural group of African women. Social Science and Medicine, 6, 387–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asuni, T. (1961) Suicide in Western Nigeria. In First Pan-African Psychiatric Conference Report (ed. Lambo, T. A.). Abeokuta, Nigeria.Google Scholar
Boroffka, A. (1964) Psychiatrie in Nigeria. Zentralblatt für Neurologic und Psychiatrie, 176, 103–4.Google Scholar
Brooke, E. M. (1960) Mental health and the population. Eugenics Revue, 51, no. 4.Google Scholar
Carothers, J. C. (1947) A study of mental derangement in Africans, and an attempt to explain its peculiarities, more especially in relation to the African attitude to life. Journal of Mental Science, 93, 548–96.Google Scholar
Carothers, J. C. (1953) The African Mind in Health and Disease. A Study of Ethnopsychiatry. Monograph Series, World Health Organization, Geneva, no. 17.Google Scholar
Collomb, H. (1956) Introduction a la psychiatrie. Médecine Tropicale, 16, 141–51.Google Scholar
Collomb, H. & Zwingeistein, J. (1961) Depressive states in an African community (Dakar). In First Pan-African Psychiatric Conference Report (ed. Lambo, T. A.). Abeokuta, Nigeria.Google Scholar
Ey, H. (1963) Manuel de Psychiatrie. Paris.Google Scholar
Fallers, L. A. & Fallers, M. C. (1960) Homicide and suicide in Busoga. In African Homicide and Suicide (ed. Bohannan, ). Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Field, M.J. (1960) Search for Security: an Ethono-Psychiatric Study of Rural Ghana. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Field, M.J. (1958) Mental diseases in rural Ghana. Journal of Mental Science, 104, 1043.Google Scholar
Forster, E. F. B. (1962) The theory and practice of psychiatry in Ghana. American Journal of Psychotherapy, xvi, 7–51.Google Scholar
Freedman, A. M. & Kaplan, H. I. (1967) Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. Baltimore, Maryland: The Williams and Wilkins Company.Google Scholar
German, G. A. (1972) Aspects of clinical psychiatry in sub-Saharan Africa. British Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 461–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
German, G. A. & Arya, O. P. (1969) Psychiatric morbidity amongst a Ugandan student population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 1323–9.Google Scholar
Girl, R. & van Lujik, J. N. (1969) Psychiatric morbidity in a small Ethiopian town. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 149–62.Google Scholar
Kagwa, B. H. (1965) Observations on the prevalence and types of mental diseases in East Africa. East African Medical Journal, 42, 673–82.Google ScholarPubMed
Kolb, L. C. (1968) Noyes' Modern Clinical Psychiatry. Philadelphia, London and Toronto: W. B. Saunders Company.Google Scholar
Lambo, T. A. (1960) Further neuropsychiatric observations in Nigeria. British Medical Journal, ii, 1–24.Google Scholar
Lambo, T. A. (1968) Schizophrenia, its features and prognosis in the African. In Deuxième Colloque Africain de Psychiatrie. Paris.Google Scholar
Laubscher, B. J. F. (1937) Sex, Custom and Psychopathology: a Study of South African Pagan Natives. London.Google Scholar
Leighton, A. M., Lambo, T. A., Hughes, C. C., Leighton, D. C., Murphy, J. M. & Macklin, D. B. (1963) Psychiatric Disorder Among the Yoruba. New York.Google Scholar
Mayer-Gross, W., Slater, E. & Roth, M. (1969) Clinical Psychiatry. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. & Raman, A. C. (1971) The chronicity of schizophrenia in indigenous tropical people: results of a twelve-year follow-up survey. British Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 489–97.Google Scholar
Orley, J. H. (1970) Culture and Mental Illness. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Pasamanick, B. (1963) Some misconceptions concerning differences in the racial prevalence of mental disorder. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 33, 72.Google Scholar
Prince, R. (1968) The changing picture of depressive syndromes in Africa: is it fact or diagnostic fashion? Canadian Journal of African Studies, 1, 177–92.Google Scholar
Rainaut, J. (1958) Un aspect des psychoses transitoires en milieu Africain: la bouffée aiguë confusionelle et anxieuse. In Mental Disorders and Mental Health in Africa South of the Sahara. CCTA/CSA WFMH WHO Meeting of Specialists on Mental Health, Bukavu. London.Google Scholar
Shelley, H. M. & Watson, W. M. (1956) An investigation concerning mental disorder in the Nyasaland natives. Journal of Mental Science, 82, 701–30.Google Scholar
Shepherd, M., Brown, A. C., Cooper, B. & Kalton, G. W. (1966) Psychiatric illness in General Practice. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smart, C. G. F. (1956) Mental maladjustment in the East African. Journal of Mental Science, 102, 441–66.Google Scholar
Tewfiq, G. I. (1958) Problems of mental illness in Uganda. In Mental Disorders and Mental Health in Africa South of the Sahara. CCTA/CSA WFMH WHO Meeting of Specialists on Mental Health, Bukavu. London.Google Scholar
Tooth, G. (1956) Studies in Mental Illness in the Gold Coast. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Vyncke, J. C. (1957) Psychoses et Neuroses en Afrique Centrale. Academic Royale des Sciences Coloniales, Classe des Sciences Naturelles et Médicales. Brussels.Google Scholar
Weinberg, S. K. (1965) Cultural factors of manicdepression in West Africa. Journal of Health and Human Behaviour, 614, 247.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.