Racial and geographic differences in the psychopathology of schizophrenia.

The authors compared the psychopathology of black and white and of rural and urban schizophrenic patients. Using a structured interview, psychiatrists rated 273 schizophrenic patients consecutively admitted to seven hospitals and mental health centers over 3 1/2 years. Results indicate that important symptoms were more severe in black than in white schizophrenic patients: black patients were more angry, impulsive, hallucinating, dysphoric, and asocial. A greater number of important symptoms were found to be more intense in rural than in urban schizophrenic patients: rural patients were more angry, aggressive, silly, negativistic, and uncooperative, but urban patients were more anxious, rigid, ambivalent, and asocial.