[The Hamburg Rating Scale for psychiatric disorders following heart operations (HRPD)]

A brief psychiatric inventory has been developed from the AMP/AMDP system for the assessment and classification of psychic disturbances after open heart surgery in a random sample of 99 patients operated upon. By means of item analysis in accordance with classic test theory, a list of 36 symptoms (items) was selected. Factor analysis of this brief inventory resulted in eight factors: disorientation, impaired concentration and thinking, paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms, anxiety, sullen inadequacy (restraint depression), hostility, loss of control, giving up. By cluster analysis the sample was divided into six subgroups: "unnoticeable", "rather unnoticeable", "slight psycho-organic symptoms with affective-emotional disturbances", "severe psycho-organic symptoms with loss of control", "hostility with paranoid and hallucinatory and psycho-organic symptoms", "delirious symptoms". Some results agree well with the descriptions of syndromes given by other AMP/AMDP reports. Other divergent results probably reflect the particular situation of the patients after open heart surgery.