Depressive symptoms in the early course of schizophrenia: relationship to familial psychiatric illness.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the relation between the presence of depressive symptoms in schizophrenic patients with a recent first psychotic episode and affective disorders among their relatives.

METHOD

Data on depressive symptoms in 70 patients with schizophrenia diagnosed according to the DSM-III-R criteria, who had had a recent first psychotic episode, and psychiatric diagnostic information on 293 of their first-degree and 674 of their second-degree relatives were collected. Depressive symptoms in the schizophrenic probands were examined at the index psychotic episode (at study entry) and systematically over a 1-year follow-through period. The majority of first-degree family members were interviewed in person with the use of semistructured diagnostic interviews.

RESULTS

The linear regression findings confirmed the hypothesis that depressive symptoms in the early course of schizophrenia are associated with a family history of unipolar affective illness.

CONCLUSIONS

Because depression in the patients was associated with a family history of depression, this suggests that depression in schizophrenia is not solely either a reaction to having had a psychotic episode or part of the recovery process. The findings are consistent with a model in which a familial genetic liability to affective disorder, when present, is viewed a s exerting a modifying influence on the patient's schizophrenic illness to increase expression of depressive symptoms.