Somatotyping of schizophrenic and affective disorder patients

Constitutional traits have been found to show a distinct relevance to major psychiatric disorders. Syndromal modified expressivity is also closely related to somatotypic constitution. In this view somatotyping appears valuable in diagnosis and prognosis of mental disorders.

The present study was conducted in an attempt to outline somatotypic characteristics of schizophrenia and affective disorders with the aim of providing a logical basis for diagnosis of these major psychiatric disorders.

The somatotype of 54 schizophrenic and 68 affective disorder inpatients who fulfil the DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia (subjects with schizophreniform, schizoaffective, schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders were excluded from the sample) and affective disorder (bipolar and unipolar) was assessed using the Health-Carter anthropometric method.

The overall assessment of the somatotypes determined both groups as endomorphs mesomorphs with somatotype components 4.50-4.44-1.90 for schizophrenic patients and 5.87-5.40-0.36 for affective disorder patients. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant for any of the somatotype components.

It is suggested that the constitutional and somatotypic characterization appears reasonable element in the multifactorial analysis of diagnostic decisions in these major psychiatric disorders.