Correlation of neurological soft signs and negative symptoms in chronic schizophrenic patients

Abstract

Neurological soft signs (NSS) are more commonly found in chronic schizoprenic patients than in the acute type of schizophrenics (schizophreniform). The same is true for negative symptoms, as a syndrome, which is more frequently found in chronic schizophrenic patients. During the last two decades, these symptoms, had been used as indicators for organic defects in the human brain. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the corelation between these two groups of symptoms in chronic schizophrenic patients at Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital and The Jakarta State Mental Hospital, where this study was done. A clinical psychiatric examination was done on 21 chronic schizophrenics as cases and 21 schizophreniform patients as controls (assessment of negative symptoms was also done with SANS). All cases and controls were examined from December 1991 - April 1992, by two independent investigators. The first investigator did a clinical psychiatric evaluation and did also NSS clinical evaluation. The second investigator examined the negative symptoms with SANS. Ten cases were examined for interrater reliability of SANS and another 11 cases for interrater reliability of NSS. From this study, we conclude that in chronic schizophrenic patients (particularly those who suffered for more than 10 years) there were significant correlations of NSS and the negative symptoms (0.87). In this report, NSS could be significantly found more frequent in chronic schizophrenics than in the schizophreniform patients. This means that if the NSS score in schizophreniform patient is high, it may serve as an indicator that the schizophreniform may develop into the chronic type (Second Type-Crow).