ATTENTION AND CLINICAL SYMPTOMS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Attentional deficits, long established to characterize patients with s chizophrenia spectrum disorders, have traditionally been regarded as p art of the disorder's clinical syndrome. In this paper we provide evid ence to indicate that: a) impaired attention is a dimension of schizop hrenia that is independent of clinical state, and b) that attention do es not appear to respond to the medication (i.e. standard neuroleptics ) most typically used to treat clinical symptoms. Since intact attenti on and other cognitive processes appear critical to successful functio ning in the community after hospital discharge, these findings have ma jor implications for treatment.