Delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenic patients

The Scale for Assessment of Positive Symptoms was used to measure delusions and hallucinations in 115 DSM-III-R schizophrenics. Our factorial analysis of the hallucinations and delusions resulted in three factors with appropriate internal consistency and frequency: a Schneiderian delusional syndrome, an auditory hallucination syndrome, and a paranoid syndrome that tend to be present in schizophrenics with later onset. These results should be cautiously interpreted due to their cross-sectional nature and to the size of the sample which does not ensure the stability of the factors.