[Relationship between years of methamphetamine use and symptoms of methamphetamine psychosis]

The authors researched the demographic characteristics of 233 patients with methamphetamine-associated disorders, and the relation between years of methamphetamine use and symptoms of methamphetamine psychosis. The results were as follows: There were more male users than females. However there were signs that the female users were gradually increasing. Users tended to be older, but users in their 20's and 30's continued to be predominant. Their school careers were usually limited and most of them had left school at a young age. Relations with a particular social group (e.g. organized gangs) has given most of them a chance to use methamphetamine. The symptoms that were seen with high frequency at the first examination were anxiety, fretfulness, auditory hallucination, insomnia, irritability, psychomotor excitement, delusion of persecution, suspicion, delusion of reference, mistake of circumstance, loss of appetite, affective disorder, hypobulia and personality change. With these symptoms, there is a possibility that five years of methamphetamine use is the turning point in terms of the frequency of symptoms occurrence. It was suggested that affective and perceptual disorders depend on the dose of methamphetamine, but abnormalities in thought subject may be deeply influenced by the patient's "feeling of social wrong". Emotional exhilaration and euphoria decreased as the number of years of methamphetamine use increased. These phenomena may be an indication of tolerance. The symptoms that were seen with high frequency at the last examination were hypobulia, affective disorder, personality change, insomnia, anxiety and fretfulness. The symptoms that were highly resistant to treatment were hypobulia, affective disorder, personality change, general malaise, hypochondriasis, insomnia, anxiety and fretfulness. It was suggested that five years of methamphetamine use may be a turning point in the residual rate of symptoms at the last examination after treatment, and also the resistance rate to treatment. Hypobulia and personality change became more evident during treatment.