Modern diagnosis schizophrenia in hospitalized psychiatric patients

Abstract

Modern criteria were applied to the diagnosis of 254 patients admitted to the psychiatric wards of an urban hospital. Only 16 (6.3%) met the St. Louis criteria for schizophrenia. Other studies using similar criteria also reported a consistently low prevalence of schizophrenia in general psychiatric inpatient populations. Undiagnosed patients (30, 12%) in this study narrowly missed the definite diagnosis of schizophrenia because of the presence of affective disorder and/or insufficient duration of symptoms.