Psychopathology of early-onset versus late-onset schizophrenia revisited: an observation of 473 neuroleptic-naive patients before and after first-admission treatments.
Reports of potential differences in psychopathological presentations between early and late-onset schizophrenia have been controversial. However, such differences in first-episode neuroleptic-naive schizophrenic patients have not been discussed. The authors evaluated symptom profiles in 473 neuroleptic-naive schizophrenic patients before and after first-admission treatments. Both before and after treatment, (1) late-onset schizophrenia had a lower score on affective flattening/social withdrawal than did the earlier-onset counterpart of the illness, even after controlling for potential secondary sources of negative symptoms; (2) systematic persecutory delusion was more severe in patients with late-onset schizophrenia; and (3) the overall effect of age of onset on the psychopathological presentations was greater than the gender-related effects, including the interaction between age of onset and gender. Consideration of late-onset schizophrenia may be important in order to develop an etiologically and clinically reasonable conceptualization of the subtypes of schizophrenia. A factor-analytical study that attempts to compare directly the structure of broad psychopathological presentations in early and late-onset schizophrenia may be a reasonable approach to investigate the longstanding unsolved controversy as to whether or not the neurobiological backgrounds underlying the psychopathological presentations are comparable.
Psychiatric Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich, Nussbaumstr 7, 80336 Munich, Germany. tsato@psy.med.uni-muenchen.de
Tetsuya
T
Sato
Ronald
R
Bottlender
Andreas
A
Schröter
Hans-Jürgen
HJ
Möller
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D017668:Age of Onset; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011599:Psychopathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents