Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:792-798
Copyright © 1997 by American Psychiatric Association
Relapse in young paranoid schizophrenic patients: a prospective study of stressful life events, P300 measures, and coping
S Pallanti, L Quercioli and A Pazzagli
Institute for Neurosciences, Florence, Italy. s.pallanti@agora.stm.it
OBJECTIVE: The authors investigated the relationship of cognitive and
coping characteristics to stressful life events at the time of relapse in
patients with recent-onset paranoid schizophrenia. METHOD: Over 6 years,
the authors collected data on 41 schizophrenic outpatients aged 18-28 years
at recruitment. The patients were rated prospectively every 2 weeks with
the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Scale for the Assessment of Negative
Symptoms, Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, Global Assessment
of Functioning Scale, and life events measures. The Frankfurt Questionnaire
of Complaints was used to analyze subjective complaints regarding cognitive
and coping abilities. The P300 auditory event-related potential was
measured at recruitment to provide an index of information-processing
capability. RESULTS: Patients without severe life events during the 1 month
before relapse had a smaller P300, more subjective complaints, and less
coping capacity than did relapsed schizophrenic subjects who had severe
life events in the month before relapse. CONCLUSIONS: Relapses in subjects
without severe life events were associated with fewer cognitive resources
and less coping ability. Patients with normal P300 and adequate coping
resources seemed to be able to deal better with stressful life events.
