Delusional disorder: retrospective analysis of 86 Chinese outpatients

Patients who visited the psychiatric outpatient service of Chang Gung Medical Centre, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan during an 8-year period were studied retrospectively. Among the 10,418 outpatients, 86 (0.83%) were diagnosed as having DSM-IV delusional disorder (DD), including 61 (70.9%) with persecutory type, 12 (14.0%) with the mixed type, seven (8.1%) with jealous type, two (2.3%) with somatic type, two (2.1%) with unspecified type, one (1.2%) with erotomanic type, and another one with grandiose type. The ratio of women to men was 0.86. The mean age at onset was 42.4 +/- 15.41 years, with women being older than men. Thirty-seven cases (43.0%) presented with depressive symptoms at their first visit. Subjects were divided into four groups: persecutory type, jealous type, mixed type and others. There were no significant differences between the four groups in terms of gender, age at onset, time-lapse before seeking psychiatric help, the presence of hallucination or the presence of depression.