Retrospective study of prodromal symptoms in schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction. There are some non-psychotic symptoms that can forecast the onset of psychosis. Discovering the differences between the symptoms that lead to disease and those that do not makes it possible to identify them and permits early treatment of the disease.

Methods. A sample of 689 schizophrenic patients was analyzed retrospectively. This sample was obtained from the clinical records database of the University Psychiatric Hospital Institut Pere Mata. Data were analyzed with the SPSS version 9.0 statistical package.

Results. The most frequent prodromal symptoms of the sample were the delusional ones, the disorganized ones and the neurotic ones. The prodromal symptoms were equally distributed in both genders. In the subtypes, paranoids showed more delusional symptoms, whereas the nonparanoids presented more disorganized symptoms. Acute onsets had more delusional prodromal symptoms whereas the insidious onsets showed more disorganized ones.

Conclusions. In the prodromal stages of shizophrenia, we can also find the community neurotic prevalences regarding gender. The higher rate of neurotic symptoms in the nonparanoid subtype would be explained by the inclusion of the schizoaffective category, whereas the higher rate of disorganized symptoms categories would be due to the hebephrenic and simple categories. The latter would also explain the prodromal differences in the onset type.