[Hysterical syndromes in a population of ambulatory neuropsychiatric patients in northwest Ethiopia. Phenomenology, psychosocial and sociocultural background].

Among 1240 first-time patients in the out-patient department of Gondar College of Medicas Sciences during the period September 1985-Juli 1986, there was, be European standards, an astonishingly high percentage of hysterical symptoms: 12.5% of all cases, 33.5% of all neurotic cases, with markedly "classic" symptomatology. These hysterical behavior patterns were interpreted as being, in the main, special problem solution mechanisms with secondary acquisition of illness under rapidly changing social conditions.