Premorbid personality and positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia

The relationship between premorbid personality and schizophrenic symptoms assessed by the Scales for the Assessment of Positive and Negative Symptoms was explored in 115 DSM-III-R schizophrenics. The frequencies of normal, schizoid-schizotypal and other DSM-III-R personality disorders were 44%, 39% and 17%. Affective flattening and alogia were significantly more frequently present and severe in the schizoid-schizotypal group than in the rest of the patients. There were no differences in positive symptoms. It is suggested that, in some cases, negative symptoms are merely the persistence or exacerbation of schizoid traits present prior to the emergence of schizophrenic symptoms. These results should be cautiously interpreted because the premorbid personality was diagnosed in a retrospective way and the negative symptoms were assessed cross-sectionally.