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Symptoms of the schizophrenic negative syndrome
1Psychiatric Unit, Virgen del Camino Hospital, Pamplona, Spain.
Background:
The aim was an investigation of the symptom composition of the negative syndrome of schizophrenia.
Method:
A hundred schizophrenic patients were assessed with various rating scales for positive and negative symptoms and typological criteria. A subgroup with a negative syndrome was defined, and a discriminant analysis performed using symptoms from the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) as discriminant variables.
Results:
The discriminant function classified 92% of patients correctly. All but four SANS symptoms (inappropriate affect, both attentional items and blocking) were significantly correlated with the discriminant function.
Conclusions:
With the exception of some items, the SANS seems to capture adequately the negative syndrome of schizophrenia.