Abstract
The study assessed the risk of intestinal parasitic infections (IPIs) among psychiatric patients incomparison with controls. A case-control study was conducted on 983 psychiatric patients andanother 983 non-psychiatric controls attending the Psychiatry and Neurology outpatient clinic ofMinia University Hospital, Egypt, during the period from October 2017 to September 2019. Asingle fecal sample was collected from each participant and examined by direct saline wetmount, formol-ether concentration. Modified trichrome and Kinyoun acid-fast staining wereused to confirm suspected cases of protozoa. Our results showed that the rate of IPIs wassignificantly higher in psychiatric patients (35%) than in control (10.8%). Multiple IPIs werefound in nine (0.9%) psychiatric patients, but not in controls. Blastocystis hominis was the mostprevalent infection followed by Cryptosporidium parvum. Patients suffering from depression hadthe highest prevalence of infection (32.6%).
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