Self-report of basic symptoms among psychotic and nonpsychotic subjects

Basic symptoms, as defined and described by the Bonn Scale, were assessed b y means of a new self-report inventory, the Rome Basic Disorders Scale. On all the subscales, psychiatric outpatients (n = 105; most frequent diagnose s: Schizophrenia, Anxiety Disorders, and Mood Disorders) scored significant ly higher (p<.001) than nonclinical controls (n = 105). Psychiatric patient s with at least one diagnosis on the psychotic sets of Foulds' hierarchical inventory (n = 45), compared with the rest of the psychiatric sample (n = 60), had significantly higher scores on nearly all subscales. Two groups of inpatients with Schizophrenia (n = 20) and Mood Disorders (n = 20) were te sted on Day 2 and 9 of hospitalization in an emergency ward. Schizophrenic patients had significantly higher scores on most of the subscales, but only on Day 9; on Day 2 depressed and manic patients scored significantly highe r on four subscales. Until now basic symptoms had not been studied during t he intrapsychotic phase, mainly because of their transformation into first- rank symptoms; present findings suggest that basic symptoms are active also at the height of the psychotic breakdown and that they are more responsive to treatment in Depression and Mania than in Schizophrenia.