[International study of schizophrenia based on a WHO program. Comparative characteristics of the data].

The author compared cases of primary schizophrenia in ten countries. In analyzing the data the author used criteria of the ICD-9 and computerized diagnosis of the CATEGO. The differences revealed between the developed and developing countries concerned acute or chronic manifestations of schizophrenia, its clinical form and frequency of individual symptoms. The computer-aided diagnosis of cases failed to identify any discrete subgroup of schizophrenia, which seems to refute the theory of heterogeneity of this disease.