EFFECT OF "HABITUATION" ON BLOOD PRESSURE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract

In a previous publication,¹ the basal blood pressures in a group of male schizophrenic patients at the Worcester State Hospital were found to be significantly lower than those of a larger group of normal subjects (medical students). The values for the patients were 104 mm. systolic and 54 mm. diastolic as compared with the students' levels of 115 mm. systolic and 71 diastolic. Since the writing of that paper, the patients on the Research Service have been confronted with a novel situation, resulting in a change in their blood pressures which has persisted, thus determining a new average level. MATERIAL AND METHODS This situation is the establishment of a series of complex test procedures, enduring over a period of one month and repeated twice, on each occasion being succeeded by an interval of rest of two months, with the purpose of determining the variability of the results and the