Stability of the Diagnosis of Deficit Syndrome in Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE: Primary, enduring negative symptoms have been distinguished from negative symptoms more generally and are used to define the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia. Although the validity of the deficit syndrome has been demonstrated by using brain imaging, neuropsychological, illness outcome,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of psychiatry 1999-04, Vol.156 (4), p.637-639
Main Authors: Amador, Xavier F., Kirkpatrick, Brian, Buchanan, Robert W., Carpenter, William T., Marcinko, Lynn, Yale, Scott A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Ambulatory Care
Biological and medical sciences
Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale - statistics & numerical data
Comparative studies
Cross-Sectional Studies
Deficit syndrome
Diagnosis
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Male
Medical diagnosis
Medical research
Medical sciences
Prospective Studies
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales - statistics & numerical data
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychometrics
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychoses
Psychotic Disorders - classification
Psychotic Disorders - diagnosis
Psychotic Disorders - psychology
Reproducibility of Results
Retrospective Studies
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - classification
Schizophrenia - diagnosis
Schizophrenic Psychology
Stability
Testing
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Summary:OBJECTIVE: Primary, enduring negative symptoms have been distinguished from negative symptoms more generally and are used to define the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia. Although the validity of the deficit syndrome has been demonstrated by using brain imaging, neuropsychological, illness outcome, and developmental history data, the stability of this diagnostic category has not been tested prospectively by using direct patient assessments. METHOD: Forty-three outpatients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were categorized into deficit and nondeficit groups an average of 3.8 years after having been previously categorized. RESULTS: There was 83% agreement between initial and blind follow-up designations of deficit status and 88% agreement on the nondeficit categorization. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence for the long-term stability of the deficit syndrome in patients with schizophrenia and the reliability of the deficit nondeficit categorization when diagnosed by those with appropriate training. Furthermore, they validate the method of categorizing deficit patients by using cross-sectional and retrospective data.
ISSN:0002-953X
1535-7228
DOI:10.1176/ajp.156.4.637