Question:medium
A 30 year old man, since 2 months, suspects that his wife is having an affair with his boss. He thinks his friend abroad is also involved and is providing technology support. He thinks people talk ill about him. His friends tried to convince him but he is not convinced at all. Otherwise he is normal. He does not have any thought disorder or any other inappropriate behaviour. The most likely diagnosis is:
A 30 year old man, since 2 months, suspects that his wife is having an affair with his boss. He thinks his friend abroad is also involved and is providing technology support. He thinks people talk ill about him. His friends tried to convince him but he is not convinced at all. Otherwise he is normal. He does not have any thought disorder or any other inappropriate behaviour. The most likely diagnosis is:
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Fixed non-bizarre delusion, no hallucinations or thought disorder, personality intact.
Updated On: Jun 24, 2026
- Paranoid personality disorder
- Persistent delusional disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Acute and transient psychosis
Show Solution
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
Frame this by the question: which disorder gives durable, organised false beliefs in a man who is otherwise intact? The vignette stacks up jealousy ($delusion\ of\ infidelity$) and persecution (he is being talked about, a far-off accomplice aids the scheme), and these have run for two months without budging despite reassurance.
The diagnostic lever is the company the delusion keeps. Here it travels alone: no voices, no muddled thinking, no disorganised conduct, normal personality, normal day-to-day life. That isolation of a single delusional theme on an otherwise clear mental landscape is the signature of delusional disorder.
Test each alternative. A man with schizophrenia would also show hallucinations or formal thought disorder; this man shows neither. Paranoid personality disorder is a stable, lifelong suspicious style present long before, not a fresh circumscribed delusion. Acute and transient psychosis is abrupt, shifting and brief, unlike this steady single-theme belief.
So the only option that matches a lasting, well formed, non-bizarre delusion with everything else preserved is persistent delusional disorder.
\[\boxed{Persistent\ delusional\ disorder}\]
The diagnostic lever is the company the delusion keeps. Here it travels alone: no voices, no muddled thinking, no disorganised conduct, normal personality, normal day-to-day life. That isolation of a single delusional theme on an otherwise clear mental landscape is the signature of delusional disorder.
Test each alternative. A man with schizophrenia would also show hallucinations or formal thought disorder; this man shows neither. Paranoid personality disorder is a stable, lifelong suspicious style present long before, not a fresh circumscribed delusion. Acute and transient psychosis is abrupt, shifting and brief, unlike this steady single-theme belief.
So the only option that matches a lasting, well formed, non-bizarre delusion with everything else preserved is persistent delusional disorder.
\[\boxed{Persistent\ delusional\ disorder}\]
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