A Follow-up Study of Obsessional Neurotics in Hong Kong Chinese

The study of the natural history of a mental illness is important because it may contribute to the diagnosis, management and prognosis of the illness and provide a means of evaluating the effect of therapy. Chapman (1963) has enumerated the difficulties which are responsible for the scanty extensive follow-up studies in neurotic patients. In recent years various new drugs have been introduced to the field of psychiatry and many are claimed to be effective in the treatment of neurosis, but their treatment results cannot be convincingly gauged until the course and prognosis of neurosis are better known. As far as obsessional neurosis is concerned there have been a few major follow-up studies carried out in European countries by Lewis (1936), Müller (1953), Rüdin (1953), Pollitt (1957), Ingram (1961a) and Kringlen (1965), but it would not be legitimate to transfer their findings without qualification or caution to Asian countries in view of racial and cultural differences.