A sample of 46 schizophrenic night-clinic patients (N patients), was matched with a sample of 46 hospital patients (H patients) for diagnosis, age, and sex. They were followed up from 1971/73 until 1983 on the basis of a personal interview and by review of all the case histories and other documents. Their average age at the time of the follow-up examination was 40 years. The average duration of the illness was 18 years in the night-clinic patients and 15 years in the hospital patients. Seven of the 46 N patients (1.4% per year) and two of the 46 H patients (0.4% per year) died during the 12 years. Of the surviving patients one-third had inconspicuous psychopathology. In one-fifth, psychopathology was only conspicuous to a psychiatrist. Only in one-quarter was it very conspicuous even to the layman. The N patients had already shown clearer signs of a chronic, insidious clinical course during the first four years of their illness than the H patients. Although substantially fewer were hospitalised at the time of the follow-up examination (17.6% cf 28.6% respectively), far more of them were receiving either outpatient or semi-inpatient care. Unsatisfactory social integration was revealed, their strong tendency to self-isolation and their inadequate work rehabilitation: 71.8% of the N patients and 62% of the H patients were dependent on a disability pension, and only 15.4% of the N patients and 20% of the H patients were employed at work in keeping with their training and experience. Just under half of the patients were living alone. Some 30-40% of them had no contacts with friends or acquaintances. Predictors of a somewhat favourable clinical course included an acutely phasic course during the first few years of the illness, a low level of parental education, and a greater age at the time of the manifestation of the illness. In particular, patients whose illness ran an acute phasic course during the four years after onset had less lengthy hospitalisations in the second stage of the clinical course than patients exhibiting signs of chronicity in the early stage.

A sample of 46 schizophrenic patients (26 men and 20 women) from a night clinic (N subjects) with an average age of 21.7 years at the time of first manifestation of the illness and a sample of hospital inpatients (H subjects) matched for diagnosis, sex, and age were followed up from 1971/1973 to 1983. The average age of the patients in 1983 was 40 years. The course of the illness and the pattern of hospitalization were investigated by personally questioning each patient and by scrutinizing all the case history records and other relevant documents; for each clinical cycle of illness, consisting of an overt phase followed by a quiescent interval, a case control sheet was filled out. The duration of illness was 18 years for the N subjects and 15 years for the H subjects. Longitudinal analysis of these years of illness in both patient samples showed a marked decrease in the number and duration of overt phases and stays in hospital, but a progressive aggravation of residual symptomatology during quiescent intervals and a progressively decreasing ability to work and earn a living. Covariance analysis (multiple classification analysis) with four covariables (age at first manifestation of the illness; residual symptomatology during quiescence in the first 4 years of illness; duration of overt phases in the first 4 years; length of hospital stays until actual or fictitious admission to the night clinic) showed no significant differences between the course of the illness in the 2 patient samples, but it did reveal a significantly greater reduction in the night clinic patients’ total duration of hospitalization, so that in their case the night clinic evidently served as a substitute for hospital treatment.

In 1973, 532 heavy smokers with an average age of 38 years for the men and 34 years for the women were questioned prior to treatment by the faith healer Hermano, and requestioned 4 months, 1 year, 5 years, and 12 years after the therapeutic ritual. The average cigarette consumption of the men had been 31 per day and that of the women 24 per day. From the moment of treatment, 40% of the subjects remained nonsmokers (with no relapse) after 4 months, 32.5% after 1 year, 20% after 5 years, and 15.9% after 12 years. At the time of the 12-year follow-up, 37.5% of the subjects were nonsmokers, the majority of them having stopped smoking again after suffering a relapse. In order to investigate the factors determining the success of nicotine withdrawal, those subjects who for 12 years had uninterruptedly abstained from smoking (N = 73) were compared and contrasted with those who for 12 years had continued to smoke almost without interruption (N = 31). Personality factors, sociodemographic features, and characteristics of smoking behavior showed no demonstrable connection with the tendency to relapse. On the other hand, it did prove possible to explain 16% of the variance in the responses to treatment: in particular, high alcohol consumption, markedly addictive smoking, rare attendance at church, and the attitude that "you have to believe in the treatment" were found to be conducive to relapse and addiction.

259 schizophrenics, 102 women and 157 men, of whom 80 were enlisted from a night clinic, 46 from the Psychiatric University Hospital and 113 from an out-patient clinic, were examined with regard to the frequency of broken home situations during their childhood. 20% had, before they were 18 yrs. old, lost a parent by death and 20% by a traumatic separation. 58% had, before they were 18 yrs. old, lost a parent or had lived together with a parent who was seriously ill or badly disturbed. No relation between the age of first illness and a broken home could, according to these research results, be established. The hypothesis that there is a higher rate of broken home situations by schizophrenics with an early outbreak of the illness, could therefore not be confirmed. Neither could a difference in the occurrence of broken home situations between males and females be observed, with the exception of the frequency of loss of parents by death, which was higher by females. The frequency of the factor 'broken home' in our examines is quite similar to the values round by Bleulers' research, 1940-1945 on male schizophrenics.

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