[Nosologic specificity of psychopathologic findings in schizophrenic and depressed patients]

Different expert-rating scales (GAS, BPRS, SANS, Ham-D) were applied to assess the psychopathological findings in 40 schizophrenic and 40 depressive patients (classified according to DSM III-R guidelines). The data demonstrated that the schizophrenic sample did not display acute psychotic or negative symptoms as a specific symptomatology, and that depressive mood was not a specific symptom of the depressive sample. Hence, these types of research tools should mainly be used as a global measurement for determining the severity of psychiatric disorders, or for monitoring the progress of individual patients in order to illustrate disparate psychopathological qualities in nosologically different groups.