The Cantabria first episode schizophrenia study: a summary of general findings

Abstract

This article describes the general findings of the initial cross-sectional stage of a prospective follow-up study of all first episodes of schizophrenia that occurred in the Autonomous Community of Cantabria over a 2-year period and that established contact with any mental health service. The project comprises: i) a 2-year cross-sectional stage, in which the sample was gathered and studied with structured psychiatric instruments such as the Present State Examination and the Scales for the Assessment of Negative and Positive Symptoms (SANS and SAPS), and; ii) a continuous follow-up. We detected, in the risk age ranged of 15-54 years, an incidence of 1.9 per 10,000 inhabitants per year for schizophrenia and of 1.3 per 10,000 inhabitants per year for the S+ CATEGO diagnosis, without any significant gender difference of morbidity. The mean age for the total schizophrenic population was 26 years, being significantly higher in women than in men. In contrast with what happens with marital status, type of household or urban/rural way of life, there was no gender difference in relation to the other sociodemographic variables. The way in which nosological and clinical variables are associated with first episodes of schizophrenia was also examined in this study. We found that 75% of patients reached a maximum CATEGO-ID level, 71% received a S+ CATEGO diagnosis, 59% presented first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia and that the percentage of a schizophrenic negative syndrome, as identified by the SANS and SAPS, was very low.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

A systematic review of the incidence of schizophrenia: the distribution of rates and the influence of sex, urbanicity, migrant status and methodology

“…Out of 100 core studies, 39 studies report rates only for persons [33,40,45,47,48,55-57,59,61,73,75,79,86,87,116,91,93-96,99,103,104,107-109,112-114,118,120-122,124-127,183,192], 16 report rates only for males and females [41,63,68,74,82,102,110,111,116,117,119,123,187-190], and 45 studies report rates for persons, males, and females [13,31,46,49-54,58,60,65-67,69-72,76-78,80,81,83-85,88-90,92,97,98,100,101,105,106,115,148,180-182,184-186,191]. …”

“…Thirty seven discrete-core studies report rates only for persons [31,33,45-49,55-57,59,61,65,71,73,75,76,78,79,85,86,88,91,93-96,99,103,104,107,112,114,121,124-126,180,190], 13 report rates only for males and females [41,50,52,53,67,74,82,102,111,116,123,188,189], and 18 studies report rates for persons, males, and females [13,51,54,58,60,69,70,72,77,80,83,84,92,97,98,100,101,106]. …”

“…We identified 21 discrete-core studies with rates from urban sites [31,33,54,61,69-71,75,78,80,84,91,93,97,98,100,103,106,121,124,125], three studies from rural sites [57,59,60], and 42 studies with mixed urban-rural catchment areas [41,45-49],230,[50-53,55,56,58,65,67,72-74,76,77,79,82,83,85,86,88,92,94-96,99,101,102,104,107,111,112,114,116,123,188,189]. Two further studies provide rates for both urban and rural categories [13,126].…”

Bases para un equipo de atención precoz a los pacientes con psicosis

“…¿Qué magnitudes suponen sus diversos subgrupos asistenciales: 1) los que ingresan a menudo; 2) los que no lo hacen pero están en contacto con los servicios de salud mental extrahospitalarios; 3) los que sólo conectan con los médicos de familia y enfermeras, con la APS, 4) los que desaparecen de las redes asistenciales durante años, hasta la próxima crisis aguda? (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26).…”

Evaluating the outcome of first episodes of schizophrenia

“…Thus, the obvious alternative would be to identify and study «con-tacts» for a first episode of schizophrenia with any mental health service. This design, which is considered to be the most «cost-effective», has been adopted, for example, in the WHO Ten Country Study (Sartorius et al, 1986;Jablensky et al, 1992), and in the MAP Project Markers and Predictors of Schizophrenia (Iacono & Beiser, 1992), and in the Cantabria First Episode Schizophrenic Study (Vazquez-Barquero et al, 1994).…”