English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness with severe disruptions in thought, perception, language, and sense of self. Although there are a lot of recent advances in pharmacotherapy, a large percentage of persons with Schizophrenia remain treatment resistant or at least partially non-resistant to drugs. The recent increase of interest in the neurobiology of Schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, the emergence of neuropsychiatry, and the recent advances in computerized analyses of EEG have resulted in a revival of interest in electrophysiology among mental health professionals. METHODS This is a prospective observational study. A total of 84 subjects who were drug naïve and diagnosed with Schizophrenia were included in the study by convenience sampling. General information sheet to collect the socio-demographic and clinical details, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Clinical Global Impression scale, Electroencephalogram recordings were used. Data analysis was performed by using the SPSS Software version 23. Descriptive statistics and correlational statistics were used to analyse the collected data. RESULTS A total of 84 subjects who were diagnosed with Schizophrenia were included in the study. Out of 84 patients, 22 were lost to follow up bringing the valid sample of the study to 62. EEGs of the sample subjects were classified based on the modified sample, EEGs of 45 (72.58 %) subjects were normal, EEGs of 13 (20.97 %) subjects were essentially normal, and EEGs of 4 (6.45 %) subjects were classified as abnormal. CONCLUSIONS No statistically significant differences were found in Positive and negative syndrome scale scores at baseline when compared between normal, essentially normal and abnormal EEG groups of first episode schizophrenia subjects. KEYWORDS Electroencephalogram (EEG), Schizophrenia, PANSS, CGI Scale, SPSS Software Version 23.0