Early detection of psychotic disorders in adolescents: specificity of basic symptoms in psychiatric patient samples

Based on the results of adult studies that have shown a subgroup of basic symptoms to have a predictive value for later schizophrenic disorder, a cross-sectional study on 36 schizophrenic and 75 nonschizophrenic adolescent psychiatric inpatients was performed to elucidate the specificity of prodromal signs in early age groups. The occurrence of any single basic symptom does not show schizophrenic specificity in adolescents, but the number of basic symptoms in the categories of the Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms is increased in schizophrenic patients compared with subjects with other diagnoses. The interrelation between minus symptoms and cognitive symptoms exerts a higher amount of cognitive disturbances given a certain level of irritation in schizophrenic adolescents. With the help of odds ratios, the seven most discriminating cognitive items could be elucidated including perception, information processing and action tendency.