Schizophrenia-Primary Affective Disorder Discrimination

Abstract

• A nine-variable diagnostic measure for discriminating schizophrenia and primary affective disorder was developed. The nine variables, which were selected by discriminant function analysis, reflect past and current symptomatology, duration of symptoms, and behavioral ratings. The measure was crossvalidated by a jackknife procedure that accurately classified nine of ten of the cases. Such accuracy suggests that brief, databased diagnostic instruments have considerable promise as practical checks of clinical diagnoses.