Negative symptoms and their association with depressive symptoms in the long-term course of schizophrenia.

Depressive symptoms abound in schizophrenia and even in subclinical states of the disorder. We studied the frequency of these symptoms and their relationship to negative symptoms from the first psychotic episode on over a long-term course of 134 months on data for 107 patients in our ABC Schizophrenia Study. Prevalence rates of 90 % for presenting at least one negative symptom and of 60 % for presenting at least one depressive symptom in the first psychotic episode illustrate the frequency of these syndromes.

Smaller than expected cognitive deficits in schizophrenia patients from the population-representative ABC catchment cohort.

Most neuropsychological studies on schizophrenia suffer from sample selection bias, with male and chronic patients being overrepresented. This probably leads to an overestimation of cognitive impairments. The present study aimed to provide a less biased estimate of cognitive functions in schizophrenia using a population-representative catchment area sample.

Investigating the long-term course of schizophrenia by sequence analysis.

In the present study we set out to explore the long-term clinical course of schizophrenia in a holistic manner by adopting sequence analysis. Our aim was to identify course types of illness by means of cluster analysis. The study was based on course and outcome data for 107 patients followed up over 134 months after first admission in the ABC Schizophrenia Study.

Prodromal unfolding: the validation of the Schizotypic Syndrome Questionnaire model in a sample of first-episode schizophrenic patients.

Aim: Validation of Van Kampen's Schizotypic Syndrome Questionnaire (SSQ) model of schizophrenic prodromal unfolding. The SSQ model comprises 12 negative, asocial and psychotic-like symptoms that are hypothesized to determine each other in terms of cause and effect.

Method: Use was made of the Interview for the Retrospective Assessment of the Onset of Schizophrenia (IRAOS)-dependent retrospective data assembled in the Mannheim Age-Beginning-Course Study sample of first-episode schizophrenic patients to measure the SSQ symptoms.

Evidence for separate diseases?: Stages of one disease or different combinations of symptom dimensions?

Objective: We tested Kraepelin's dichotomy model by studying the separability of schizophrenia and depression on the basis of symptoms and illness course.

Materials And Methods: Matched untreated patients with schizophrenia and depression (n = 130 each) and 130 "healthy" controls were assessed from onset to first admission. In a second study the same variables were studied in 107 patients with schizophrenia over a homogenised follow-up of 134 months (11.

[Developmental conditions and subjective experiences of children with a schizophrenic parent--qualitative and quantitative studies from the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk].

Objective: 35 children 12-42 years of age of patients with schizophrenia (ABC-Cohort-12-year-follow-up) were interviewed for studying objective and subjective effects of growing up with a schizophrenic parent.

Material And Method: Social development and childhood experiences were assessed and quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated.

Results: The majority of probands had to take on early responsibilities in their family.

Schizophrenia and depression: challenging the paradigm of two separate diseases--a controlled study of schizophrenia, depression and healthy controls.

Background: We studied descriptive and causal associations between schizophrenia, depressive symptoms and episodes of depression.

Methods: Untreated psychotic, depressive and negative symptoms were assessed retrospectively from onset until first admission using the IRAOS in a population-based sample of 232 first episodes of schizophrenia. A representative subsample of 130 patients, studied retrospectively until onset and followed up prospectively over 6 months after first admission, were compared with 130 age- and sex-matched healthy population controls and with 130 equally matched first admissions for unipolar depressive episodes.

Depression in the long-term course of schizophrenia.

Depressive symptoms are quantitatively and qualitatively among the most important characteristics of schizophrenia. The following contribution reports on the prevalence of depression in 107 patients of the ABC schizophrenia study over 12 years after first hospital admission, looks into a preponderance of depression at certain stages of the illness and the predictive value of depressive symptoms for course and outcome. All but one of the 107 patients experienced one to 10 episodes of depressed mood between index assessment and long-term follow-up.

The early course of schizophrenia and depression*.

Objective: Risk factors, emergence and accumulation of symptoms in the untreated early course were studied as a basis for understanding the relationship between schizophrenia and depression.

Materials And Methods: 130 representative first admissions for schizophrenia were compared retrospectively with 130 individually matched first admissions for depressive episodes and with 130 healthy controls.

Results: Onsets of schizophrenia and severe depression were marked by depressive symptoms, followed by negative symptoms and functional impairment.

Modeling the early course of schizophrenia.

Using the Interview for the Retrospective Assessment of the Onset of Schizophrenia (IRAOS), we assessed 170 first illness episodes with a nonpsychotic prodromal stage (73% of the population-based Age, Beginning, Course [ABC] study sample of 232 first illness episodes of schizophrenia from a German population of about 1.5 million). Conrad's (1958) and Docherty et al.

Precipitation and determination of the onset and course of schizophrenia by substance abuse--a retrospective and prospective study of 232 population-based first illness episodes.

Onset and lifetime prevalence of substance abuse were assessed retrospectively using the IRAOS interview in a population-based, controlled sample of 232 first episodes of schizophrenia (ABC sample). Subjects with schizophrenia were twice as likely as controls to have a lifetime history of substance abuse at the age of first admission (alcohol abuse: 23.7 versus 12.