A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF PARANOID AND SCHIZOID PERSONALITY-DISORDERS

Objective: Family studies have demonstrated a higher rate of schizoid personality in the families of probands with schizophrenia and a highe r rate of paranoid personality in the families of probands with delusi onal disorder. The authors sought to investigate the familial characte ristics of probands with schizoid and paranoid personality disorders a nd to delineate the clinical characteristics of the two groups. Method ; Records of 351 inpatients with discharge diagnoses that included the term ''schizoid personality '' or ''paranoid personality '' were exam ined to identify patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for schizoid pers onality disorder (N=34) or paranoid personality disorder (N=19). Compa risons were made between the two groups with respect to clinical sympt oms, familial characteristics, and longitudinal course. Results: The a uthors found that probands with schizoid personality disorder were hos pitalized at an earlier age than probands with paranoid personality di sorder, had more intervention before the index admission, and had grea ter morbidity following the index admission. They also found that desc riptors of the two syndromes tended to congregate in the respective fa mily material, but the differences were not statistically significant. Differences in the familial prevalence of schizophrenia were also not statistically significant. Conclusions. These familial data do not su pport the hypothesis that schizophrenia congregates in the families of probands with schizoid personality disorder. Possible explanations fo r this finding are discussed.