Clinical psychiatry The diagnosis of “psychopathy” through the prism of ICD-10

Objective: Until 90s in the Soviet Union rubric “psychopathy” was used regarding all variants of personality disorders (PD).

Methods: 100 patients with the diagnosis of “psychopathy”, placed in a psychiatric hospital in 1970, were investigated. Clinical picture was considered in definitions of ICD-10.

Results: Ten patients were identified as non-suffering from PD (4 cases–schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders; 3–disorders of sexual preferences; 2-alcoholism; 1-mental retardation). The other patients met criteria of PD, amongst the variants the most common were the borderline, histrionic, dissocial and avoidant PD (23.5%; 23.5%; 22%; 15%). Manifestations of hetero/autoagression were the most common reasons of hospitalization and related to dissocial and borderline PD accompanied by alcohol abuse and multiple violations of adaptation. Unstable ideas of persecution were found only in borderline and paranoid PD, short-term hallucinatory states related to psychic trauma - in histrionic PD.

Conclusions: The similarity of mono axial diagnostic systems of ICD-10 and the classifier used in the USSR allows to estimate the clinical features of patients with PD receiving inpatient treatment in 1970 from the contemporary perspective.