[Quality of life of psychiatric patients]

Quality of life is difficult to define and utilizes hundreds of indicators partly arriving at different results. By measuring losses of the quality of life, general psychiatric disorders compare with the most severe chronic somatic diseases. The effects of anxiety and affective symptoms are major, calling for more attention on their treatment. Patients with schizophrenia often have life quality assessments that are more positive than those of the surrounding people, a fact that should be considered in setting of the objectives of their treatment. The losses of the quality of life of the patients' close relatives should also be taken into account.