Positive and Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia as Predictors of Length of Military Service: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Forty-three chronic schizophrenic veterans had negative symptom, positive symptom, and smooth pursuit eye movement evaluations to determine if the severity of impairment in these dimensions could retrospectively predict their length of military service. For the entire patient group, there was a strong trend for severity of negative symptoms to predict the length of military service (p = 0.055). However, different associations for these variables emerged when the patients were divided into groups with more or less than 2 years of service. The length of military service might serve as a type of "filter" that meaningfully separates out different subtypes of schizophrenic veterans.