Thought disorder in schizophrenia: relation to activity and temporal dimensions [Part II]

ABSTRACT

The transcribed responses of 20 schizophrenic patients to a free verbalization interview and a word meaning test were subjected to a content analysis. Different variants of thought disorder were assessed in each test. The data collected were analysed respectively according to the time factor and to the activity dimension. The correlation between the activity dimension and the severity of thought disorder was found to be highly significant. However, no consistent significant findings were found in relation to the duration of the schizophrenic illness. Chronicity appeared to be much more dependent on the activity dimension than on the time factor. Moreover, both the word meaning test and the free verbalization interview proved to be useful tools in the screening of thought disorder