Sartorius N, Gulbinat W, Harrison G, Laska E, Siegel C
Division of Mental Health, World Health Organization, Geneva Switzerland.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 1996 Sep;31(5):249-58. doi: 10.1007/BF00787917.
An unexpected finding of the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia, launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1967, was that patients in countries outside Europe and the United States have a more favourable short- and medium-term course of the disease than those seen in developed countries. Since then, WHO has intensified its schizophrenia research programme and has initiated a set of international studies that have confirmed these initial findings and explored possible reasons for such differences in the course and outcome of schizophrenia. While such work has provided important findings and has generated additional pertinent hypotheses, it did not explain the differences in outcome. The present paper describes a new initiative in which approximately 2500 subjects involved in previous WHO multicentre schizophrenia studies are being followed up for between 15 and 25 years after initial examination. Nineteen research centres in 16 countries are taking part in this work. The research methodology is described.
1967年由世界卫生组织（WHO）发起的精神分裂症国际试点研究有一项意外发现，即欧洲和美国以外国家的患者在疾病的短期和中期病程方面比发达国家的患者更为有利。自那时以来，WHO加强了其精神分裂症研究计划，并启动了一系列国际研究，这些研究证实了这些初步发现，并探讨了精神分裂症病程和结果存在此类差异的可能原因。虽然这项工作提供了重要发现并产生了其他相关假设，但并未解释结果差异。本文描述了一项新举措，即对先前参与WHO多中心精神分裂症研究的约2500名受试者在初次检查后的15至25年进行随访。16个国家的19个研究中心参与了这项工作。文中描述了研究方法。
