Characteristics of patients with schizophrenia successive to childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The goal of this study was to investigate the characteristics of schizophrenic patients with a history of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study was performed on 37 adolescent patients meeting the DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia and ADHD and 40 controls with schizophrenia only. Schizophrenic patients who were diagnosed in childhood as suffering from ADHD had more prominent developmental disturbances in infancy, more insidious course of schizophrenia, failed to respond to neuroleptics and had poorer outcome as compared to patients with schizophrenia only. The results of this study indicate that schizophrenia subsequent to childhood ADHD has a poor prognosis as compared to schizophrenia only.