Lifelong course of positive and negative symptoms in chronically institutionalized patients with schizophrenia.

Background: Despite widespread policies of deinstitutionalization, a substantial number of patients with schizophrenia require continuous custodial care. The hospital records of such patients provide contemporaneous documentation of symptoms throughout the illness, permitting a longitudinal study of the course of symptoms. We sought to describe this course, and to determine the influences of sex, age of onset, and treatment on its evolution.