[Mental state of patients with restricted forms of pulmonary tuberculosis]

The procedure of the multimodality personality investigation (MMPI) to examine the mental status and personality traits of 61 patients with newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis of limited extent. The clinical and psychodiagnostic examination has revealed the following general types of a response to the disease: alienation from the people around, depressive reaction (18%), negative attitude to treatment (16.1% of the patients refused treatment and 13.1% refused surgical treatment), social adaptation impairment, neglect of the generally accepted behaviour patterns and schizoid personality traits. Along with this, the individual forms of a response to disease detection were determined. They were manifested by a number of symptom complexes: hypochondriac (13.6%), anxiety-depressive (18.4%) and paranoid (9.1%). These mental disorders gravely affected the patients and made treatment of the basic disease more complicated. A long-term conservative treatment aggravated depression and hysterical and schizoid personality traits. The mental status and the types of response were shown to differ from the same reactions in somatic patients with other abnormalities.