Depressive symptoms in acute schizophrenic inpatients

Prospective and longitudinal assessment of depressive, positive, and negative symptoms were performed on 86 newly admitted schizophrenic patients. The improvement of depressive symptoms was significantly correlated with the improvement in positive symptoms, but did not correlate with the improvement in negative symptoms. However, depressive symptoms were heterogeneous. Principal components analysis was used to subdivide depressive symptoms into five factors. The improvement of the depression-anxiety factor was significantly associated with improvement of positive symptoms. On the other hand, improvement of negative symptoms was significantly related to that of the reduced activity factor. The change in hypochondriasis had a significant positive correlation with the change in positive symptoms and had a significant negative correlation with the change in negative symptoms. Changes in the other factors of depressive symptoms did not appear to be associated with changes in positive or negative symptoms. The present findings suggest that the various depressive symptoms associated with acute schizophrenia may have different pathophysiological origins.