[Stability of positive/negative symptoms in schizophrenia]

The debate concerning the stable or instable aspect of schizophrenic symptomatology has lead the authors to study this phenomenon by taking into account, at the time of inclusion of a schizophrenic patient, such parameters as: the phase of the illness (acute, post-acute or stable) or the course (chronicity) as well as the relationship between the negative symptomatology variation and other symptomatic dimension variation (depression, akinesia, etc.), in follow-up studies. The results of these studies are clearly in favour of taking into consideration all or part of these parameters, to evaluate at best the stability of positive and negative schizophrenic symptoms.