ACUTE PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS F23
(DIAGNOSIS)

Presenting Complaints

• Patients may experience:

• Hearing voices
• Strange beliefs or fears
• Confusion

• Families may ask for help with changes in behaviour that cannot be explained including strange or frightening behaviour (e.g. withdrawal, suspiciousness, threatening behaviour).
  
  

Diagnostic Features

• Recent onset of:
  
  
• Hallucinations - False or imagined sensations (e.g. hearing voices when no-one is around).
  
  
• Delusions - Firmly held ideas which are plainly false and not shared by others in the patients social group (e.g. patient believes he/she is being poisoned by neighbors, receiving messages from TV, or is looked at by others some special way).
  
  
• Disordered thinking - exhibited by strange or disjointed speech
  
  

Differential Diagnosis

• Physical disorders which can cause psychotic symptoms include:

• Epilepsy
• Intoxication or withdrawal from drugs or alcohol
• See section on Delirium .
  
  
• If psychotic symptoms are recurrent or chronic, see section on Chronic Psychotic Disorders .
  
  
• If symptoms of mania (elevated mood, racing speech or thoughts, exaggerated self-worth) are prominent, patient may be experiencing a manic episode. See section on Bipolar Disorder .
  
  
• If low or sad mood is prominent, see section on Depression .

Edited by Gavin Andrews MD, UNSW, Jan 03
© 2003 CRUfAD