Symptom monitoring in schizophrenia: potential for enhancing self-care

In this study a symptom self-regulation model was used as a framework to examine the characteristics and stability of indicators of illness identified by individuals with schizophrenia. Subjects were interviewed to determine if they could identify indicators of illness and describe characteristics of their primary indicator. Primary indicators of illness from 51 subjects were categorized as anxiety-based, depressive, or psychotic. Subjects who identified psychotic indicators were more confident that their indicator occurred when they were getting ill than subjects with anxiety-based or depressive indicators, and subjects who identified psychotic and depressive indicators reported that their indicators were more troublesome than those identifying anxiety-based indicators. Anxiety-based indicators were reported by subjects to occur more frequently than indicators from the other two categories. Findings from a follow-up interview of 28 subjects 1 year later showed that approximately half reported either the same primary indicator of illness or identified an indicator in the same category (anxiety-based, depressive, or psychotic) as they had 1 year previously. The implications of the findings for enhancing self-care through monitoring symptoms are discussed.