Behaviour and Experience: The Two Sides of the Negative Syndrome - A Comparison of Andreasen's Negative Syndrome and Huber's Basic Symptoms.

Abstract

Negative symptoms in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder are present both in behavior and in the subjective experience of the patients, however the relationships between these two components have not been sufficiently studied. Standardized assessment methods were utilized in a study of 96 acutely exacerbated inpatients and 26 stabilized outpatients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder for the measurement of nega tive symptoms, subjective experiences, depression, general psychopathology and neurological side effects. Halo - peridol blood levels were controlled in the inpatient group. Results of this study suggest that the behavioral symptoms and the subjective experiences of the negative syndrome are not correlated with each other. The subjective experiences of negative symptoms were highly correlated with depression in the acutely exacerbated inpatients, but not in the outpatients. Medication levels and neurological side effects were not related either to the behavioral or the experiential aspects of the negative syndrome.