Dickson W E, Kendell R E
Psychol Med. 1986 Aug;16(3):521-30. doi: 10.1017/s003329170001028x.
Mental-hospital admission rates in Edinburgh for mania, schizophrenia and psychotic depression were studied from 1970 to 1981, a 12-year period during which long-term lithium therapy was increasingly employed in affective illnesses. If this treatment had been effective admission and readmission rates for mania, and perhaps also for depression, should have fallen progressively. In fact, they rose steadily, while the admission rate for schizophrenia fell. These changes could not easily be attributed to changing diagnostic criteria, to the admission of milder affective illnesses, or to poor and deteriorating lithium surveillance. Their explanation is uncertain, but they cast some doubt on the efficacy of lithium prophylaxis in ordinary clinical practice.
对1970年至1981年这12年间爱丁堡因躁狂症、精神分裂症和精神病性抑郁症而入住精神病院的比率进行了研究，在此期间，情感性疾病越来越多地采用长期锂盐治疗。如果这种治疗有效，那么躁狂症的入院率和再入院率，或许还有抑郁症的入院率，应该会逐渐下降。事实上，这些比率稳步上升，而精神分裂症的入院率则下降了。这些变化难以轻易归因于诊断标准的改变、较轻情感性疾病的收治，或锂盐监测不力及监测质量下降。其原因尚不确定，但它们对锂盐预防性治疗在普通临床实践中的疗效提出了一些质疑。
