Negative Symptoms and the Course of Positive Symptoms in Deficit Schizophrenia

Abstract

Differences in the patterns of negative symptoms between two subgroups of inpatients with chronic schizophrenia and a deficit syndrome were examined: one subgroup presented episodic symptoms, while the other exhibited a continuous course of positive symptoms. Patients with a continuous course of positive symptoms showed significantly higher affective blunting and anhedonia according to the SANS, a lower BPRS activation score and a lower age of onset in males than episodic cases. These results suggest that in deficit schizophrenia different courses of positive symptoms are associated with different severity degrees and different patterns of negative symptoms.

The Deficit Syndrome in Schizophrenic and Nonschizophrenic Patients: Preliminary Studies

“…A methodologi cal alternative to process negative symptoms has been proposed by Benkert and colleagues [19], considering negative symptoms as pri mary only when the patients have been neuro leptic free for at least 12 months and showing neither depression nor psychotic symptoms. Finally, precise information about the course [48,49] and the stage of the disorder may be also an important condition for adequate in terpretation and comparison of data about process, deficit and negative symptoms.…”