Changes in negative symptoms of schizophrenic patients two years later

This study investigated the course of negative symptoms by examining the psychiatric symptoms of 59 new schizophrenic patients at the first consultation and again two years later using a structured interview--the Present State Examination. An examination of the total score of the nine negative symptoms, included in the "Chronic Schizophrenic Syndrome" by Wing, showed that 27 out of the 59 patients (45.8%) had lower symptom scores two years later than they did at the first consultation ("negative symptom improvement" group), while 20 patients (33.9%) had higher scores two years after the first consultation ("negative symptom deterioration" group). There were 12% more patients in the improvement group than in the deterioration group. No significant differences were observed between the "improvement group" and "deterioration group" in relation to the following factors--subclassification of schizophrenia, mode of onset, age at the first consultation, marital status at the time of onset, academic history, employment status prior to the onset, the history of hospitalization after the onset and maintenance therapy of neuroleptics. In relation to psychiatric symptoms at the first consultation, the patients in the "improvement group" had a variety of symptoms compared to the patients in the "deterioration group," and the presence of "incoherence of thought," "delusion of reference" and "special features of depression" was significantly higher in the improvement group than in the deterioration group.