[Depressive symptoms and negative symptoms during schizophrenia]

Taking into account the wellknown frequency of depressive and extrapyramidal symptoms in schizophrenia and the rare studies about their evolution, several questions can be raised: How do these different symptoms move? Are there specific characters of each of them? First, stability of negative symptoms evaluated by the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) was studied among 57 schizophrenic patients at admission and at discharge. The course of negative symptoms was compared to that of depressive MADRS (Montgomery et Asberg Depression Rating Scale) and akinetic symptoms (Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale). All the subscores of the SANS decreased significantly but 4 items belonging to the affective flattening subscale and one item belonging to the alogia subscale did not vary significantly, showing the necessity of taking into account the individual items of the SANS rather than the subscale scores to evaluate the course of negative symptoms. Changes in all the SANS subscores except the alogia and anhedonia subscores were associated with variations in scores of other scales. Correlations between the changes of negative symptoms and the changes of depressive symptoms showed the necessity to do more specific scales, for example, scales for depression in schizophrenia. Langlois-Théry et al. (1994) evaluated among 53 schizophrenic patients stabilized with neuroleptic treatment, depressive symptomatology with Echelle de Ralentissement Dépressif (ERD, Widlöcher, 1983) and MADRS, negative symptomatology (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) and akinesia (ESRS), to determinate whether ERD composed of 3 subscores (motor, ideic and subjective) could be able to evaluate the depressive symptomatology, independently of the measures of negative and akinetic symptomatology.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)