[Positive or negative symptoms. Which are more reliable in the diagnosis of schizophrenia?]

Due to the anticipated revisions concerning diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia in DSM-IV, recent Anglo-American research has been particularly concerned with the controversial problem whether positive or negative symptoms are more suited for the determination of these criteria. We addressed this problem in an empirical study. A total of 489 consecutive admissions to the Department of Psychiatry at the RWTH University, Aachen were assessed for the distribution of positive, negative and basic symptoms according to six ICD-10 double-digit diagnostic categories. Positive symptoms were shown to be more useful for diagnosis than the negative or basic symptoms. Basic symptoms, however, had a pattern of distribution which supports the notion that they may also be useful for the early diagnosis of schizophrenia.