Mental health articles

About diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. At least one of the symptoms (a)–(d) or at least two of the symptoms (e)–(i) should have been present during a period of a month or more:

(a)thought echo, thought insertion or withdrawal, and thought broadcasting;

(b)delusions of control, influence or passivity, clearly referred to body or limb movements or specific thoughts, actions or sensations, delusional perception;

(c)hallucinatory voices giving running commentary on the patient’s behaviour, or discussing the patient among themselves, or other types of hallucinatory voices coming from some part of the body;

(d)persistent delusions of other kinds that are culturally inappropriate and completely impossible, such as religious or political identity, or superhuman powers and abilities;

(e)persistent hallucinations in any modality, accompanied either by fleeting or half formed delusions without clear affective component, or persistent overvalued ideas, occurring every day for weeks or months on end;

(f) breaks in interpolations in the train of thought, resulting in incoherence or irrelevant speech or neologisms;

(g)catatonic behaviour, such as excitement, posturing, waxy flexibility, negativism, mutism and stupor;

(h)‘negative’ symptoms such as marked apathy, paucity of speech and blunting or incongruity of emotional responses, usually resulting in social withdrawal and lowering of social performance; it must be clear that they are not due to depression or neuroleptic medication;

(i) a significant and consistent change in the overall quality of some aspects of the personal behaviour, manifest as loss of interest, aimlessness, idleness, a self-absorbed attitude and social withdrawal.

Tags: Criteria, schizophrenia, symptoms