Demographic aspects of functional psychoses in Canada

Canadian national data for functional psychoses (classified as schizophrenia, effective psychoses, paranoid states and reactive psychoses) are analyzed for age, sex, marital status, expectancy for first admissions and length of stay for discharges. Differences are found such that each psychosis can be distinguished from the others, thus providing indirect evidence supporting the use of the different diagnoses. The demographic characteristics of reactive psychoses from North American data have not been previously described, and are found to be similar to Scandinavian descriptions. Sex ratios for subgroup diagnoses whow similarities between catatonic schizophrenics, manic (bipolar) affectives, and reactive psychoses. Schizoaffective psychoses resemble affectives more than schizophrenia, and paraphrenia is similar to affectives. Total expectancies for functional psychosis (4.4% for males, 5.5% for females) are similar to Scandinavian figures, but the distribution by diagnosis differs, perhaps representing different diagnostic practices, but generally similar sex ratios and high rates in single persons are found.