[Emotional expressiveness and development of schizophrenia: a reply to the work of Vaughn]

The influence of family climate in the course of schizophrenia has been empirically established. However research has been so far limited to the Anglo-American culture and there are reasons to think that straight forward extrapolation to own our culture may not be totally justified. Consecqently a replication of Vaughn's (Vaughn et al, 1984) has been carried out with a sample of 60 schizophrenic patients in Valencia. Relapse rate was not predicted by EE status or by any EE scale-score according to British original criteria. As the cut-off point was changed from six or more critical remarks to four or more, then the relapse rate was significantly different between high and low EE groups. The study confirms the link between EE-status and relapse rates over nine months but is also underlines the need to take into account cultural differences when it comes to establish cut-off scores.