[The problem of remission in schizophrenia: clinical and epidemiological study]

Remission has been considered as a stage in the development of endogenous process taking into account a type of disease course (continuous, episodic-progressive, slow-progressive, number of psychotic episodes) and as an independent clinical presentation differentiated by syndrome structure and stability level. Remissions have been assessed by predominance of positive (symptom remissions) or negative (syndrome remissions) disorders. Two hundreds and thirty-eight patients with schizophrenia, aged 42,4+/-11,2 years, from an out-patient clinic have been studied at the stage of remission. The high frequency of paranoid, thymopathic and apathic remission was observed. The most frequent variants of remission featured the low level of adaptation (77,31% of patients) that was correlated with the high percentage of patients unemployed due to health problems (69,75%). A group with symptomatic remissions is the first that needs pharmacologic correction. Atypical antipsychotics, including depo forms, are drugs of first choice in the therapy of remissions.