Adjustment disorder
Doctors describe adjustment disorder as the distress against the background of emotions of disturbing lines that hamper the social activities and occur in the period of adaptation to considerable life change or stressful circumstances. In adjustment disorder the stressor affects the reliability of social support and values or is the sign of extremely important change in life. Among the provocative factors of adjustment disorder may be going to school, matrimonial life, and failure in personal career. Individual predilection or susceptibility plays a significant part in the risk of happening and developing of adjustment disorder. However, doctors point out that the condition can occur only as a result of the stressor action. The clinical manifestations include symptoms of depression, anxiety or apprehension, inability to cope with the situation, and decreased ability to perform the everyday duties. Behavioral disorders are particularly characteristic feature in teenagers. The main characteristics may be short or protracted symptoms of depression, other emotional disorder and conduct derangements. The other terms for adjustment disorder are culture shock, grief reaction, neurotic reaction, adaptation reaction.
Particularities of adjustment disorder symptoms
Conditions of subjective distress and emotional anxiety interfere with social functioning and productive activity. The symptoms develop within one month after the exposure to an identified psychosocial stressor, which is not unusual or connected to the catastrophe. Doctors detect symptoms of behavioral disorders of the types which are found in other affective disorders with the exception of delirium and hallucinations, any other disorders of neurotic types connected to stress, and somatic disorders, but in the absence of criteria for these concrete disorders. Symptoms can be variable in the form and severity. They do not last more than six months after the cessation of stress or its consequences with the exception of prolonged depressive reaction. Children may develop regressive phenomena such as enuresis, children’s speech, thumb sucking.
Variants:
Doctors take into account prevailing features of adjustment disorder symptoms such as:
- Short depressive reaction. Doctors find the transitory easy symptoms of depression of the duration no more than one month.
- Prolonged depressive reaction. There are easy symptoms of depression, which arise as a result of protracted action of the stressor situation, but their duration is no more than two years.
- The mixed anxiety and symptoms of depression. The symptoms of anxiety and depression are distinctly expressed, but their level is not higher than is determined for the mixed anxiety and depressive disorder or other mixed anxiety disorders.
- Doctors detect the prevalence of other emotional disorder. The symptoms are usually of several emotional types, such as anxiety, depression, apprehension, tension, strain and anger. Symptoms of anxiety and depression may meet the criteria of the mixed anxiety-depressive disorder or other mixed anxiety disorders, but they are not so dominant that other more specific depressive or anxiety disorders could be diagnosed. This category should be also used for reactions in children who also demonstrate the regressive behavior, such as enuresis or finger sucking.
- There is prevalence of behavioral disorder. The basic disturbance affects the behavior, for example, in teenagers the reaction to grief declares itself by aggressive or asocial behavior.
- Doctors find the mixed disorder of emotions and behavior. Both emotional symptoms and abnormalities of behavior are distinctly expressed.
- There are other specified prevailing symptoms.
This is information about adjustment disorder.