Swedish experiences with the structured clinical interview for the positive and negative syndrome scale for schizophrenia (SCI-PANSS)

Abstract

Already at the end of the 19th century, Hughlings-Jackson suggested that positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions should be kept apart from negative symptoms such as anhedonia and reduced energy in all psychoses. Both Kreapelin and Bleuler regarded the negative symptoms as fundamental in schizophrenia while the positive symptoms were regarded as being accessory, accompanying the disorder. This view was maintained for 60 years (table 1) until Schneider (1959) introduced the “first rank symptoms”, all of them positive. Schneider never advocated that these symptoms should be a sufficient basis for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In any case, the “first rank Symptoms” have been included in most later diagnostic systems (table 1).