[Acute psychogenic disorders in lepers].

The authors carried out clinical follow-up and psychological examinations of 40 patients suffering from leprosy and treated at the Astrakhan Institute for Leprosy Research. Under study there were acute psychogenic reactions arising in the patients on diagnosing the disease and putting them to the leprosery. Clinical variants of adequate situational reactions (21 patients) and anomalous neurotic and psychopathic ones (19 patients) are described. These reactions were found to depend on the premorbid characteristics of the patient's personality and influence the subsequent course of the underlying disease.