[Formal changes of thought in schizophrenic, schizophreniform, and manic schizoaffective disorders]

The aim of the present study was to verify the hypothesis that there are formal thought disorders more specific to schizophrenic disorders. The sample was composed of 82 admitted patients who were chosen for two reasons: presence of schizophrenic symptoms and they fulfilled the RDC criteria for schizophrenic or schizoaffective manic disorders. They were subdivided in three groups according to the RDC and DSM-III-R criteria. The first group were twenty eight patients who fulfilled both criteria to schizophrenic disorders, the second group 28 whose fulfilled the RDC but not DSM-III-R criteria of schizophrenic disorder, and the third group were 26 schizoaffective manics in RDC but with diverse diagnoses in DSM-III-R. A factorial analysis was carried out with oblique rotation and one-way analyses of variance of the factors between the diagnostic groups. It resulted in six factors which explained 70% of the variance and were named: disorganization, negative, stylistic, tangential, manic and semantic factors. The schizophrenic patients and significantly loaded in the negative factor with respect to the other groups, and were significantly loaded in the tangential factor with respect to schizophreniform group. The schizoaffective manics were significantly loaded in manic factor respect to the other groups. Therefore there were symptomatological constellations more specific to schizophrenic disorders. Also, significative correlations were found between the disorganization factor and the SANS attention subscale and a lack of correlations between this factor and the positive symptoms. The existence of a new disorganization syndrome was confirmed, which supplements the positive-negative dichotomous model that has been proposed by some authors.