Schizophrenia: affect and outcome.

Considerable data suggest that schizophrenic patients with affective symptoms have a more favorable outcome than other schizophrenic patients. This may indicate that such patients are more validly regarded as having either an affective disorder or a schizoaffective psychosis. Studies of this issue have suffered from significant methodologic problems, including inappropriate sampling, unsystematic collection of symptom data, unreliable diagnostic procedures, and restricted outcome assessment. The present study, designed to surmount these methodologic difficulties, indicates that while levels of psychotic symptoms in schizophrenic patients correlate with poor outcome, affective symptoms have little prognostic power.