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Older patients with schizophrenia: nature of dwelling status and symptom severity
Sanjay Gupta1, Charles Steinmeyer, Bradford Frank
1Department of Psychiatry, Olean General Hospital, NY, USA. sgupta1@adelphia.net
Objective:
This cross-sectional study enrolled elderly patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
Method:
The 85 subjects were dichotomized into two groups on the basis of dwelling status: those living independently (N=35) and those living in residential settings (N=50). The groups were compared with regard to scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), the Geriatric Depression Scale and by age.
Results:
Patients living independently had significantly higher MMSE scores, lower SANS scores, more years of education, and were younger than the patients living in residential settings.
Conclusions:
These data suggest that although cognition, negative symptoms, and age are important discriminators with regard to dwelling status, cognition and negative symptoms appear to have the strongest impact.