Clinical symptomatology and drug compliance in schizophrenic patients

Abstract

The differences in the psychopathologic status of 26 complaint and 32 noncomplaint schizophrenic patients were evaluated on the basis of rating scales used at discharge. Noncomplaint patients had significantly higher scores for grandiosity, lack of feeling of illness and insight into it. Their score for global psychopathological state and disturbance in social adjustment was also significantly higher. The compliant patients had significantly higher score for self-rated depression.

Psychometric properties of the Taiwanese version of the Illness Concept Scale: relation of health beliefs to psychopathology and medication compliance

“…This finding contrasts with those of a number of authors who reported that schizophrenia patients have more difficulties implementing coherent actions because of disturbances in their formal thought processes [41]; that they are too locked into their productive-psychotic experience to take medication regularly [42]; that they have a partial feeling of well-being despite being in a state of psychosis [43]; and that they are incapable of understanding that they are ill [43]. The discrepancy between these reports and our findings may be explained by the fact that we used a sample of individuals with schizophrenia who received assessments during a stabilization phase.…”

Insight, Global Functioning and Psychopathology Amongst In-patient Clients with Schizophrenia

“…On cross-sectional analyses, lack of insight has been closely linked to poor global functioning [24][25][26], and poor treatment compliance [27,28]. Lack of insight has also been closely associated with severe psychopathology [4,15,29], although inverse or no direct relationships have also been reported [8,16,30] Similarly, a number of studies have reported an inverse [31][32][33] but also positive [34][35][36] relationship between insight and positive symptoms, suggesting therefore that insight may be largely independent of psychopathology severity [37,38] as such, recent research interest has now been shifted onto specific symptom dimensions. For instance, weak to modest relationships have been reported between insight and anxiety [23,39,40] or depressive symptomatology [32,41,42].…”

Unawareness of illness and its relationship with depression and self-deception in schizophrenia

“…In their review of the literature on postpsychotic depression, McGlashan and Carpenter (1976) conclude that these types of mood disorders arise from a lessening of defensive denial, which results in the patients becoming aware of the tragic circumstances of their illness. The finding that poor insight is positively correlated with elated mood and grandiosity has also been interpreted as evidence that poor insight serves a defensive function (Bartko et al, 1988, Heinrichs et al, 1985.…”