[A multicenter study regarding schizophrenia patients' notification of the diagnosis].

Over 10 years have passed since the Japanese term for "schizophrenia" was changed from "seishin-bunretsu-byo" to "togo-shiccho-sho" in 2002. An awareness survey targeting doctors suggested that notification of the diagnosis has been encouraged since the Japanese name for schizophrenia was changed. However, no heuristic surveys targeting patients themselves have clarified an increased notification rate, and no multicenter studies of the notification rates have been conducted in recent years. This study targeted schizophrenia patients and their attending physicians to investigate the status of notification of the diagnosis at five medical facilities in Hokkaido, Japan. Questionnaires were distributed to the attending physicians of a total of 869 patients; in addition, the patients themselves filled out questionnaires. Questionnaires were collected from 858 physicians, and valid responses were recovered from 529 patients. This study investigated the status of notification of the diagnosis and compared the attributes of patients who were notified (notified group) with those of patients who were not notified (un-notified group). The results of the survey of attending physicians regarding notification of the diagnosis of schizophrenia indicated that a total of 65.0% patients had been notified, with 63.1% of patients being notified that they had "togo-shiccho-sho" and 2.0% of patients being notified that they had "seishin-bunretsu-byo." Physicians were unsure whether patients had been notified in 18.4% of cases. On excluding these cases, the results indicated that over 79.6% of patients had been notified that they had either "togo-shiccho-sho" or "seishin-bunretsu-byo." The patient questionnaire results regarding patients' awareness of the name of their disease showed that 55.2% answered "togo-shiccho-sho," 3.2% answered "seishin-bunretsu-byo," 9.5% answered the name of another disease, 17.4% answered that they did not know the name of their disease, and 14.7% answered that they knew the name of their disease but did not include any specific details. On excluding these unspecified answers, 68.5% of patients were aware that they had either "togo-shiccho-sho" or "seishin-bunretsu-byo." Comparison of the notified with the un-notified group revealed that the period from treatment initiation in the notified group was shorter than that in the un-notified group, and the mean age of the notified group at the time of the survey was lower than that of the un-notified group. Furthermore, significantly more patients started treatment before 2002, when the Japanese name for schizophrenia was changed, in the un-notified group. The results of this study suggested that the change of the Japanese name of schizophrenia to "togo-shiccho-sho" and historical background resulted in more active notification of the diagnosis.