Predisposition for mental syndromes: A study comparing predisposition for depression, neurasthenia and anxiety state

A hypothesis of selective predisposition for drepression, neurasthenic syndrome and anxiety states has been tested in a prospective study. The primary material for the investigation consisted of 4,000 city inhabitants who had registered a private car. Almost all of these could be invited to a group investigation by questionnaire in the autumn of 1959. Out of those invited, 83% participated, and out of these, 3,019 were males (the secondary material). Six years later, the registers of public psychiatric out- and in-patient units in the city were examined as to the appearance in 1960 or later of the men in the secondary material. One hundred and fourteen of these men were found in the registers. For each of these men ten controls, matched for age, were chosen from the rest of the secondary material. Thirty-seven of the patients had had a depression and 17 a neurasthenic syndrome as the main diagnosis, and 17 had an anxiety state as the main or secondary diagnosis. As independent factors were chosen the Sjöbring personality factors sub-validity (psychasthenic traits), sub-stability (syntonia) and sub-solidity (hysteroid habitual attitude), as well as subclinical phenomena related to the neurasthenic, depressive and anxiety syndromes. It was not possible to show a specific predisposing power of the background factors investigated. Psychasthenic premorbid personality, however, was significantly related to depression, and also showed a strong tendency to an association with neurasthenic syndrome and anxiety states.