Relationships between subjective experiences of deficit and other psychopathological features in schizophrenia

The study of subjective symptomatology among schizophrenic patients has been neglected. Even if the patient complaints have always been at the root of the psychiatrist's work, it has not been conceivable to integrate them in objective studies. Since 1950, Huber has been interested in the basic symptoms and has developed his concept of 'a pure defect state', a syndrome which is present as soon as the beginning of the disease and on which episodes of decompensation would crop up. In the 1980s, a majority of the scales for the assessment of subjective complaints appeared. Our study used the French version of the Scale of Subjective Experiences of Deficit, a scale which has a good internal consistency and interrater and test-retest reliability. In this study of 50 longterm schizophrenic patients, we compare subjective symptoms and objective symptoms using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. We point out - in agreement with previous work - a statistically significant correlation between subjective symptoms and positive symptoms.