The NIMH-Israeli schizophrenia project: the history of a high-risk study

We have reviewed some of the difficulties encountered in bringing this study to completion. Among our special problems were the necessity of collecting large numbers of measures on a relatively small study population, the need to recruit and maintain a staff over long periods of time, the wide geographical separation between staff members responsible for design and those responsible for execution of the study, and the difficulties of conducting longitudinal research in a politically unstable part of the world. Centralization of data and data analysis proved a crucial step in bringing the study to its present level of completion.