[Disturbances of orientation with functional psychoses (author's transl)]

It was supposed by clinical impressions that disturbances of orientation do not appear only in severe degrees of a transit-syndrome, but also in the light stadium of such a physically founded psychosis. In order to verify these impressions, a questionnaire was developed which permitted an objective scoring. This Q-Test consists of 37 questions (items), which measure the orientations of time, space, situation, and person. On the base of this questionnaire two samples were tested, the one consisting of 50 patients with functional psychoses (reversible physically founded psychoses), the other consisting of 50 patients with only neurological disturbances. The degree of the functional psychoses was determined by the "Syndrome-Test" (F. Bocker, 1959). The range of the scores corresponded with the clinical categories from a low degree of the transit-syndrome to a medium degree of disturbances of consciousness. The scoring was based on an standard system derived from the results of the control group (patients with only neurological disturbances). The clinical impressions could be verified by empirical and statistical methods. According to the test results, disturbances of orientation already appear during the light stadium of the transit-syndrome. Furthermore there is a high significant correlation (p. less than 001) between the degree of the functional psychoses and the degree of the disturbances of orientation. This applies to all categories of orientation. The orientation concerning time, space and situation proved to be more susceptible to disturbances than the orientation concerning the person. The very close correlation between the degrees of the functional psychoses and the degrees of the disturbances of orientation make it possible to determine the stadium of the functional psychoses promptly. The complete and very handy "short-time-test" will be published in a special paper.