Methamphetamine-related Psychosis,Clinical Features,Diagnosis,and Treatment:Based On A Clinical Case

As a member of the family of phenethylamines,methamphetamine is a psychoactive stimulant drug that has long been noticed to produce psychosis in human.Methamphetamine induced hallucinations and delusions may cause violence and suicide.Drug problem not only damaged the health of individuals,aggravated social burdens,endangered social security,but also constituted medical and social problems.Methamphetamine-related psychosis is symptomatically indistinguishable from schizophrenia.Clinically,the most efficient way to identify methamphetamine-related psychosis from other mental disorders is through careful evaluation of the relationship between the use of MA and the onset of psychiatric symptoms.Methamphetamine-associated psychosis not only include transient psychiatric symptoms in the acute phase,but also includes psychiatric symptoms in which the use of methamphetamine ceases for more than one month,or symptom relapse lasts for more than one month even abstinence.Methamphetamine-related psychosis may occur in methamphetamine users and is more likely to occur and develop in susceptible subpopulations with "primary" mental illness or risk factors for mental illness.About clinical conceptualization,how to diagnose and differentially diagnose is currently the focus and core issue of the debate.Clinically definitive diagnosis is also very challenging.Based on a novel clinical case,this article analyzes the clinical features,diagnosis and differential diagnosis of methamphetamine-related psychosis.Clinicians may need to make more efforts to collect information from multiple sources to support diagnosis.This includes semi-structured or structured interviews such as PRISM,SCID-I,interviews with key members,meticulous clinical observations,and objective indicators,etc.Optional choices like medical treatement,rTMS,CBT or mindfulness therapy should&can implement promptly.