Schizophrenia-specific basic symptoms. A successful replication.

Several investigations showed that the Frankfurt Complaint Questionnaire (FCQ) has no diagnostic specificity. However, in a preceding study two new FCQ subscales were developed: FCQ-S, sensitive to schizophrenia, and FCQ-A, sensitive to alcoholism. The aim of the present study was to replicate the diagnostic sensitivity of those subscales. Four groups were considered: schizophrenics with marked negative symptoms (n = 25); schizophrenics with no or mild negative symptoms (n = 25); alcoholics (n = 25); patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (n = 15). FCQ original subscales and total score did not differ between groups. As expected, in FCQ-S both schizophrenic groups had significantly higher scores than the other groups; FCQ-A failed to show group differences but was significantly related to alcoholism markers.