Modern diagnosis schizophrenia in hospitalized psychiatric patients.

The authors applied modern criteria to the diagnosis of 254 patients admitted to the psychiatric wards of an urban hospital. They found that only 16 (6.3%) met the St. Louis criteria for schizophrenia. Other studies using similar criteria also reported a consistently low prevalence of schizophrenia in general psychiatric inpatient populations. However, 30 "undiagnosed" patients (12%) in this study narrowly missed the definite diagnosis of schizophrenia because of the presence of affective disorder and/or insufficient duration of symptoms. The authors discuss the clinical and research implications of these findings.