Six Months Fol low-up of Pa tients with Meth am phet amine Psy cho sis

Back ground. It has been nearly 50 years since the psy chotic state caused by am phet amine was first re ported. How ever, the prog no sis of meth am phet amine (MAP) psy cho sis and its re la tion ship with chronic schizo phre nia are still vague. Some au thors pre ferred MAP psy cho sis model of schizo phre nia, while other stud ies found dif fer ence be tween the two groups of pa tients in the as pects of neg a tive symp toms. Methods. In this study we fol lowed 21 psy chi at ric in pa tients with di ag no sis of MAP psy cho sis. Sched ule for af fec tive dis or ders and schizo phre nia (SADS), scale for as sess ment of neg a tive symp toms (SANS) and global as sess ment scale (GAS) were used for eval u a tion of these pa tients dur ing ad mis sion and six months af ter dis charge. Re sults. Sev en teen pa tients were in ter viewed and eight of them con fessed re use of MAP. The fol low-up ex am i na tions found de creased to tal scores of de lu sion and hal lu ci na tion in SADS and in creased GAS scores. The SANS scores of the MAP psy chotic pa tients in this study were lower than mod er ate level. No sig nif i cant change could be found for most SANS sub cat e gory scores ex cept some items. Con clu sions. Most MAP psy chotic pa tients fol lowed in this study im proved much in six months. The re sults of the SANS eval u a tion and the clin i cal course for six months in di cated that the MAP psy cho sis is a psy chotic dis or der dif fer ent from chronic schizo phre nia. [Chin Med J (Tai pei) 2001;64:388-394]