Am J Psychiatry 1988; 145:1532-1537
Copyright © 1988 by American Psychiatric Association
Postpsychotic depression and negative symptoms: an investigation of syndromal overlap
SG Siris, F Adan, M Cohen, J Mandeli, A Aronson and E Casey
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, City University of New York.
The authors studied 46 patients with the operationally defined syndrome of
postpsychotic depression following episodes of schizophrenia or
schizoaffective disorder. Half of these patients were also found to satisfy
criteria for negative symptoms. The patients with negative symptoms were
rated as more severely ill on global measures, but there was only limited
evidence that they were more depressed. Nevertheless, in a randomized
double-blind trial of imipramine versus placebo as an adjunct to the
fluphenazine decanoate and benztropine regimens of the patients with
negative symptoms, the patients who received imipramine seemed to show more
improvement.
