Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie
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Comparative Study
A comparison between Australasian and Canadian candidates on common examinations in psychiatry.
Multiple choice examinations designed by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada were administered to candidates eligible for certification in the specialty of Psychiatry and to candidates in Australia and New Zealand who were eligible for certification by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Results indicated that two national groups of candidates performed similarly on these common examinations. ⋯ Because of the similar performance of the candidates, the stable cross-national statistical characteristics displayed by the items, and the confirmation of the relevance of the items by Australasian and Canadian content experts, it was concluded that the test items are suitable for testing the knowledge of both Australasian and Canadian candidates. The study recommends that the work begun by the working meetings dealing with international sharing of test materials and sponsored by the CIBA Foundation be continued.
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Delirium following heart surgery with extra-corporeal circulation recently has been the subject of several studies that show a syndrome with variable diagnostic criteria and incidence which tend to confuse the entity. The diagnostic criteria proposed by the recent DSM-III of the American Psychiatric Association allow a better circumscription of the syndrome but exclude a group of patients manifesting visual hallucinations, sometimes paranoid features and cognitive functions that are less disturbed. Heller's and Kornfeld's less rigid criteria, on the other hand, have the disadvantage of including functional psychotic states that can arise after surgery without a true delirium with organic brain syndrome. ⋯ Those risk factors were also found in other recent studies. We describe the clinical syndrome and discuss its etiology in reviewing the more common risk factors before, during and after surgery. We underline the importance of the quality of the relationship with the patient before and after surgery in discussing prevention and treatment.
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The authors thought it would be of interest to present this case which proved to be Klinefelter's syndrome with "xxy" pattern, as the patient presented with episodes of abnormal behaviour lasting for a few minutes. Ho would suddenly become anxious, look perplexed, start clenching his fists and at times complain of thoughts tha some persons were trying to attack him. He also felt as if he were hearing voices talking to him. Observation in the hospital and EEG recording helped to rule out temporal lobe epilepsy and a diagnosis of Klinefelter's syndrome with personality disorder and psychogenic attacks of abnormal behaviour was made at the time of discharge.