The assessment of light intensity preference in psychiatric patients: a questionnaire.

The assessment of abnormal light-related behaviour is important for methodological reasons, and has a prophylactic and heuristic value. Since no operationalization of these behaviour patterns has been published until now, we constructed a questionnaire to identify abnormal light intensity preference based on a systematic study and previous case reports. We administered the questionnaire to patients with schizophrenia (n = 46) or major depression (n = 55), and to healthy control subjects (n = 70).

The deficit syndrome in first-admission patients with psychotic and non-psychotic disorders.

The authors study the frequency of primary enduring negative symptoms in first-admission patients with schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic disorders. Carpenter's criteria for distinguishing the primary, enduring negative symptoms from the more transient negative symptoms (secondary to different factors) were applied. Furthermore, they compare negative symptom complexes between first-admission patients and patients with recurrent hospitalizations (within 5 years after first admission).

[Significance of primary negative symptoms in schizophrenic and other psychiatric patients].

We report on a short overview of our work which has examined different definitions of negative syndromes across a broad spectrum of diagnoses. Primary enduring negative symptoms were assessed with the Schedule for Deficit Syndrome (SDS) and with the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) in schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic patients. Results suggested that patients with psychotic disorders are in a high-risk group for deficit syndrome.

Primary enduring negative symptoms in schizophrenia and major depression.

Primary enduring negative symptoms (PENS) were studied in 26 patients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia and in 94 patients with unipolar major depressive episodes 5 years after the index episode. PENS were assessed with the Schedule for Deficit Syndrome (SDS). Negative symptoms were also assessed with the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and subclassified into primary and secondary according to the SDS.