[Endogenous episodes of juvenile psychosis with religious delusions].

AIM

To identify clinical and psychopathological features, conditions of formation and prognostic significance of delusions with religious content in endogenous psychotic states in adolescence.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Fifty-three male patients, aged from 16 to 25 years, with juvenile endogenous psychosis, with a psychotic episode with religious content of delusion were examined. Clinical, psychopathological, psychometrical (The Dawkins scale) and statistical methods were used.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

General psychopathological features of psychotic states with religious delusions, according to the specificity of adolescent age, were identified. Common types of religious delusional episodes, forming by primal interpretive (delusion of sin, delusion of demonic possession) and sensual (messianic and antagonistic delusion, religious oneiroid) mechanisms were distinguished. A role of the previous religiosity, including overvalued religious ideas, was clarified. It was found out that the duration of the pre-manifest stage, hospitalization and the period of 'untreated psychosis', was longer in patients with religious delusions compared to patients with other types of delusions. Patients with interpretive mechanism of delusion formation demonstrated the subsequent intensification of religiosity that was not common for psychotic episodes with the sensual mechanism of delusion formation.