Prospective observations of emerging psychosis

Because delays in treatment of psychosis may be associated with poorer outcomes, intervention focus has shifted to the prodromal phase of illness. However, knowledge about this phase has been limited to retrospective reconstructions of symptoms once psychosis is already present. The following article offers a new, prospective view of the development of schizophrenia starting from the late prodromal phase of illness. As we use the term, late prodromal phase of illness means at imminent risk of conversion to schizophrenia. In this article, entry, conversion, and discharge data are presented on a sub-population of eight patients who received treatment for psychosis at onset while participating in a prospective double-blind placebo-controlled treatment study of the prodrome to psychosis. Through disguised case examples, this article then focuses on the course of illness progression in three of eight cases who converted to schizophreniform psychosis while randomized on either active medication or placebo. Discussion focuses on the dimensional quality of the transition both from the prodrome to psychosis and from psychosis to recovery.