[Qulerulousness--a disappearing psychopathologic behavioral disorder?]

Compulsive Querulousness (CQ) is a term for behaviour characterised by an exaggerated feeling of righteousness and is not a specific ingredient of any particular psychiatric illness. CQ was well represented in psychiatric literature until the year 1960 both in textbooks and in single-case studies, but has disappeared from clinical psychiatric interest in the last 30 years. In the first part of our study we present the syndrome in its various facets (epidemiology, aetiology, categorisation, symptoms, therapy). In an epidemiological study we extracted in chronological order all patients with compulsively querulous behaviour hospitalised in our clinic during the years 1922-1951 and 1964-1993. We found the compulsively querulous behaviour has been more rarely diagnosed in the last 30 years. Possible reasons for this are the CQ was used in more negative terms in former times than today and, consequently, there is a tendency today to avoid the term CQ even in cases of clearly querulous behaviour. In the second part we present, in a cross-sectional study, biographical and personality characteristics of all "legal compulsively querulous persons" hospitalised during 60 years--a characteristic subsection of persons with compulsively querulous behaviour. We found, among other facts, a predominance of male gender, of medium or higher education and professional status, a trigger experience of injustice, and discuss their relevance in the formation of compulsive querulous development.