Comparing the prodrome of schizophrenia-spectrum psychoses and affective disorders with and without psychotic features
Schizophrenia Research, 05/02/2012  Clinical Article

Schultze–Lutter F et al. – The results suggest that, in the early detection of affective disorders, those that might take on a psychotic form and those with a non–psychotic course need to be considered separately. While the current at–risk criteria for psychosis function well in detecting those with a psychotic course, those with a non–psychotic course would benefit from the development and evaluation of new at–risk criteria and new early detection instruments.

• The authors compared the prodromal symptoms of patients who had sought help at an early detection center; had been assessed at baseline with the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS); and who, within 53months on average, developed schizophrenia-spectrum psychosis (pre-SCZ; n=51), affective disorder with psychotic features (pre-AD-P; n=7), or affective disorder without psychotic features (pre-AD-noP; n=16).

• While pre-SCZ scored slightly higher on most positive symptoms than pre-AD, pre-AD-P and pre-SCZ scored comparably across the SIPS; moreover, pre-AD-noP and pre-SCZ differed on most subscales and items, particularly on the positive and negative dimensions.
• Furthermore, pre-AD-P scored higher on positive symptoms than pre-AD-noP.