[Possibilities of preventing childhood schizophrenia]. / O vozmozhnostiakh profilaktiki detskoi shizofrenii.

The authors consider poorly studied questions of childhood schizophrenia prophylaxis (primary, secondary, individual, and social). At present it is virtually impossible to speak about primary and individual prophylaxis of childhood schizophrenia as an endogenic disease. Preventive measures of reduction of birth rates in groups of patients and individuals at a high risk of the disease should be considered as social prophylaxis aimed at decreasing the prevalence of this disease in the population and complicated by relevant deontological problems. Secondary (therapeutic) prophylaxis of infantile schizophrenia holds promise, due to the fact that the predictions of its outcome are not altogether gloomy and prophylactic treatment runs a favourable course in more than half the cases. Prospects of secondary (therapeutic) prophylaxis of childhood schizophrenia are steadily improving due to the breakthroughs of modern therapy.

Can schizophrenic be prevented? Empirical results obtained by the examination of schizophrenic twins and schizophrenic children.

Concrete findings indicate the possibility of preventing schizophrenia, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the findings only relate to certain forms of theillness. Schizophrenias running an insidiously progressive course could very seldom be obsserved in monozygotic twins. So these pairs provide evidence that forms with this course can be prevented. It is to be supposed that the close communication usually found in identical twins, prevents withdrawal from environment and in consequence prevents schizophrenia. This assumption seems to be confirmed by our observation in insidiously progressive childhood schizophrenias which accumulate in only children and sometimes break out already in early childhood while the infants, staying in a hospital or a home, are suffering lack of communication. So it seems possible to prevent these forms of schizophrenia when we succeed in providing a close contact of the child and the adolescent with an intimate friend who directs his thinking outwards and protects him from withdrawal. But, unfortunately, in cases with phasic course the provoking factors correlate with the factors preventing the insidiously progressive forms. However, in detail, not quite the same factors prevent the one forms as precipitate the others, so that we can avoid doing harm simultaneously when we succeed in doing good. Besides, we must take account of the fact that some schizophrenias running a remitting course, especially periodic catatonia, are of hereditary origin and cannot be prevent psychosocially.

A longitudinal psychophysiological study of three-year-old Mauritian children: preliminary report.

The rationale for using the high-risk-group research design in the search for the aetiology of schizophrenia is described. A longitudinal study is being made of three-year-old Mauritian children who underwent a variety of physiological and psychological tests. Groups of these children, selected on the basis of their responses to electrodermal stimulation, are now attending nursery schools established on the island as part of this study. A control group of children do not attend nursery school. It is intended to follow-up these children over the next two decades. Mention is made of the benefits of this research to the development of para-medical and educational services in a developing country.