Twelve-month outcome of patients with DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder: comparisons to matched patients with bipolar disorder

Schizoaffective disorder is a relatively common illness with an uncertain r elationship with bipolar disorder. The publication of DSM-III-R in 1987 ope rationalized the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, separating it from psychotic bipolar disorder by the presence of persistent psychosis in the a bsence of affective symptoms. Since that time, there have been few prospect ive outcome studies comparing schizoaffective and bipolar disorders. The au thors recruited 27 hospitalized patients with schizoaffective disorder and compared their 12-month outcome to 27 sex-, age-, socioeconomic status- and race-matched hospitalized bipolar patients. The schizoaffective patients w ere significantly less likely to achieve syndromic recovery than the bipola r patients, although neither group achieved high rates of symptomatic or fu nctional recovery. As expected, the schizoaffective patients were more like ly to exhibit persistent psychosis, with or without affective symptoms, thr oughout the follow-up interval. These data provide clinical support of the predictive value of the DSM-III-R criteria for schizoaffective disorder in a naturalistic outcome setting. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.