Positive and negative symptoms in neuroleptic-free psychotic inpatients

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Andreasen's scales for the assessment of positive (SAPS) and negative (SANS) symptoms and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) were administered to a group of 70 neuroleptic-free psychotic inpatients. Individual ratings from the SAPS and SANS, together with the 18-item BPRS, were examined to identify clusters of symptoms. The findings, consistent with our previous studies using medicated patients, did not support a simple positive-negative dichotomy. Independent syndromes representing negative symptoms and thought disorder were apparent, although within the negative syndrome there were three related sub-syndromes of flat affect, alogia and social dysfunctions. Hallucinations and delusions did not form a homogeneous group of symptoms. Paranoia emerged as a distinct syndrome, and the remaining symptoms could be subdivided into hallucinations, grandiose delusions, and ‘loss of boundary’ delusions (e.g., thought broadcasting, mind reading). These syndromes, with the exception of loss of boundary delusions, which consisted of SAPS delusions alone, correspond to syndromes of psychosis identified by Lorr and his colleagues thirty years ago. It is concluded that the currently popular ‘three syndrome’ model does not adequately represent the diversity of psychotic symptoms.