Neurological Soft Signs in Patients with Psychotic Symptoms and without Psychotic Symptoms: A Direct Comparison

Background: The neurological abnormalities known as neurological soft signs (NSSs), which manifest in some mentally ill individuals, are categorized as “soft” to represent a lack of precise cerebral location. They consist of inhibitory, motor, and sensory disorders. Aims: (i) To assess the NSS and compare their prevalence in patients with psychotic and non-psychotic symptoms, (ii) To determine the relationship between NSS and other sociodemographic characteristics. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 50 patients with psychotic symptoms (schizophrenia, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and bipolar affective disorder) and 50 patients with non-psychotic symptoms (anxiety, depressive, dissociative, and somatoform disorder) disorders were examined by a psychiatrist and diagnosed using the International Classification of Diseases 10 criteria. The patients were separated into two groups: psychotic and non-psychotic, and they were assessed using a 26-item Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES) to get their NSS score, which was then compared between the two groups. Results: In our study, the sample was dominated by females (n = 57), with a mean age of 35.38 ± 10.74 years. Patients with psychotic symptoms had a statistically higher mean NES score than patients without psychotic symptoms (20.62 ± 13.34 and 9.12 ± 4.91, respectively, p< .05). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that psychotic patients have higher NES scores and the severity of NSS could be useful in the phenotypic characterization of patients with psychotic symptoms and identification of vulnerability in patients with non-psychotic symptoms.