[A scale to assess psychasthenia]

"Psychasthenia exists--we meet it every day". Despite this affirmation, Pierre Janet's views remain unappreciated by international psychiatry. Psychasthenia is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III-R). This pathology, described by Janet as both benign and terrible, is presently broken into many diagnostic categories with respect to the principal symptomatology of the patient. When a mood disorder is present, these patients can have diagnostic criteria for major depression or dysthymia. Patients with prevalent anxiety, phobia or obsessive-compulsive symptoms, must also be classified in having anxiety disorders. When somatic complaints are major symptoms, the patient's disease can be, on the whole, attributed to a somatoform disorder. This scale is a global evaluation of psychasthenia. It is made up of three lists of items. The first concerns asthenia or fatigue sine materia. The items in this group allow an evaluation of the physical and mental characteristics of asthenia associated with an inability of acting. Difficulties in mental concentration are measured by items in the second list. Mental processes are associated with doubts and waverings. They are interrupted by interferences caused by obsessions with recurrent and persistent ideas, impulses or images. Physical symptoms without organic pathology or a pathophysiologic mechanism constitute the neurasthenic part of psychasthenia. In the third list, somatic complaints are spelled out in a check-list of these potential symptoms. This scale can be used as a help in the diagnosis. Items 2, 3, 5, 25, 26 and 29 have a specific reference to the history of the disorder.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)