A 4-Month Follow-Up Study Of Clinical And Psychosocial Naturalistic Outcome Among Incident Cases Of Schizophrenia In A Psychiatric Hospital

📄 Project Abstract

Background Longitudinal outcome studies based on incident and predominantly neuroleptic-naive cases of schizophrenia are uncommon in the modern literature. Using the opportunity of availability of standard outcome measures, there is need to revisit the issue of outcome in schizophrenia, after the controversies generated by the WHO IPSS study that indicated better clinical outcome in developing countries. Objectives (i) To determine the proportions of patients with different levels of clinical outcome at monthly intervals of naturalistic treatment follow-up for 4-months, viz: response, remission, and recovery, using standard rating scales; (ii) To assess socio-demographic and clinical factors associated with short-term clinical and psychosocial outcome in incident cases of schizophrenia and to determine the association of clinical outcome indices with scores on social support and functional disability scales. Method Consecutive incident cases at the Federal Neuropsychiatric hospital, En...