Assessment of psychosis in schizophrenia and affective disorders by a locally constructed rating scale

ABSTRACT

This study tried to investigate the notion that psychosis is not synonymous with schizophrenia. Psychiatric symptoms are not unique to a particular psychiatric disorder but rather a measurable dimension underlying different disorders even those of neurosis. A sample of 117 patients labeled with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, 56 patients with affective psychoses and a control group of 25 patients with neurotic disorders were investigated. Psychosis was assessed in these patients using a locally constructed rating scale compared of five dimensions, these were loose association, delusion, hallucination, personality deterioration and passivity experiences. The results were discussed in the light of the psychiatric profile and it was found that psychosis is found in different patterns among the studied disorders. Schizophrenia was found to be a heterogeneous disorder and bipolar affective disorder was found to be of more severe psychosis than unipolar disorder