Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:53:18.046Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Correlates of Positive and Negative Schizophrenic Syndromes in Nigerian Patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

O. Gureje*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of South Manchester, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 8LR; Department of Psychiatry, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The two-syndrome concept of schizophrenia was investigated in a sample of 70 Nigerian schizophrenic patients. The positive and negative syndromes were studied in relation to demographic, historical, neurological and psychometric measures. The negative syndrome was associated with cognitive impairment, behavioural deterioration and left eye dominance, and also with poor pre-morbid educational achievement and longer length of current stay in hospital. The positive syndrome was unrelated to any of the independent variables. The two syndromes were not significantly related, supporting the view that they represent relatively independent dimensions of pathology. This provides further support for the validity of the Type I–Type II subtyping of schizophrenia in populations of patients from different cultural backgrounds, and suggests that the negative syndrome is related to the presence of neurodevelopmental deficits that possibly antedate the schizophrenic illness.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreasen, N. C., Olsen, S. A., Dennert, J. W., et al (1982) Ventricular enlargement in schizophrenia: relationship to positive and negative symptoms. American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 297302.Google ScholarPubMed
Andreasen, N. C. & Olsen, S. A. (1982) Negative and positive schizophrenia: definition and validation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 789794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bleuler, E. (1950) Dementia Praecox, or The Group of Schizophrenias. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, J. & Sartorius, N. (1977) Cultural and temporal variations in schizophrenia: a speculation on the importance of industrialization. British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 5055.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J. (1980) Molecular pathology of schizophrenia: more than one dimension of pathology? British Medical Journal, 280, 6668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crow, T. J. (1985) The two-syndrome concept: origins and current status. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 11, 471486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J., Owens, F., Cross, A. J., et al (1981) Neurotransmitter enzymes and receptors in post-mortem brain in schizophrenia: evidence that an increase in D2 receptors is associated with the Type I syndrome. In Transmitter Biochemistry of Human Brain Tissue (eds P. Riederer & E. Usdin). London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Davis, J. M. (1976) Comparative doses and costs of antipsychotic medication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 858861.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feighner, J. P., Rubins, E., Guze, S. B., et al (1972) Diagnostic criteria for use use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 5763.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnstone, E. C., Owens, D. G. C., Gold, A., et al (1981) Institutionalisation and the defects of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 195203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kasanin, J. (1933) The acute schizoaffective psychoses. American Journal of Psychiatry, 90, 97126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolakowska, T., Williams, A. O., Ardern, M., et al (1986) Tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenics under 60 years of age. Biological Psychiatry, 21, 161169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraepelin, E. (1919) Dementia Praecox and Paraphrenia (translated by Barday, R. M. & Robertson, G. M.). New York: R. E. Krieger.Google Scholar
Krawiecka, M., Goldberg, D. & Vaughan, M. (1977) A standardized psychiatric assessment for rating chronic psychiatric patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 55, 299308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulhara, P., Kota, S. K. & Joseph, S. (1986) Positive and negative subtypes of schizophrenia: a study from India. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 74, 353359.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liddle, P. F. (1987) Schizophrenic syndromes, cognitive performance and neurological dysfunction. Psychological Medicine, 17, 4957.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathai, P. J. & Gopinath, P. S. (1985) Deficits of chronic schizophrenia in relation to long-term hospitalization. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 509516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nachshon, I. & Denno, D. (1987) Birth stress and lateral preferences. Cortex, 23, 4558.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Institute of Mental Health (1976) Abnormal involuntary movement scale. In ECDEU Assessment Manual (ed. W. Guy). Rockville: US Department of Health, Education and Welfare.Google Scholar
Opler, L. A., Kay, S. R., Rosado, V., et al (1984) Positive and negative syndromes in chronic schizophrenic in-patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 172, 317325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, D. G. C. & Johnstone, E. C. (1980) The disabilities of chronic schizophrenia - their nature and the factors contributing to their development. British Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 384395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, D. G. C., Johnstone, E. C. Crow, T. J., et al (1985) Lateral ventricular size in schizophrenia: relationship to the disease process and its clinical manifestations. Psychological Medicine, 15, 2741.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, M. A. (1987) Impact of cultural pressures on self-report of actual and approved hand use. Neuropsychologic, 25, 247258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfohl, B. & Winokur, G. (1982) The evolution of symptoms in institutionalized hebephrenic/catatonic schizophrenics. British Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 567572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pogue-Geile, M. F. & Harrow, M. (1984) Negative and positive symptoms in schizophrenia and depression: a follow-up. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 10, 371387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piran, N., Bigler, E. D. & Cohen, D. (1982) Motoric laterality and eye dominance suggest unique pattern of cerebral organisation in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 10061010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quitkin, F., Rifkin, A. & Klein, D. F. (1976) Neurologic soft signs in schizophrenia and character disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 845853.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stephens, J. H., Astrup, C. & Mangrum, J. C. (1966) Prognostic factors in recovered and deteriorated schizophrenics. American Journal of Psychiatry, 122, 11161121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T. & Winokur, G. (1974) Criteria for sub-typing schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 4347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waddington, J. L., Youssef, H. A., Dolphin, C., et al (1987) Cognitive dysfunction, negative symptoms, and tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenia: their association in relation to topography of involuntary movements and criterion of their abnormality. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 907912.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Health Organization (1979) Schizophrenia: an International Follow-up Study. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K. (1961) A simple and reliable sub-classification of chronic schizophrenia. Journal of Mental Science, 107, 862875.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withers, E. & Hinton, J. (1971) Three forms of the clinical tests of the sensorium and their reliability. British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.