The structure of schizotypy, its relation to subdiagnoses of schizophrenia and to sex and age.

Abstract

A growing amount of evidence suggests that the generally accepted division of schizophrenic symptomatology into positive and negative aspects should be extended to include a third major aspect, namely 'disorganization/social impairment'. As schizotypy can be seen as the non-pathological counterpart of schizophrenia, possibly brought about by the same 'schizotaxic' predisposition(s), it might be expected that the multidimensionality of schizotypy would reflect the tripartite structure seen in schizophrenia. Although the data from studies using scales to measure schizotypy do not clearly support this view, this is mainly because of the relative lack of comparability among the scales used in different studies. Results from the present study, which involve the factor analysis of items rather than scales derived from the testing of a large and diverse population of normal subjects, does, however, support the view that measures of schizotypy may be grouped in a parallel way to symptoms shown by populations of schizophrenic subjects. The suggestion may thus be made that the symptom groupings shown by schizophrenics may be seen as primary and not the secondary result of reactions to earlier phases of the illness. The role of sex and age in the determination of scores on schizotypic dimensions is also examined and show that the sex and age differences found in subdiagnostic categories in schizophrenia are reflected in dimensions of schizotypy.