At Issue: Identifying Schizophrenic Patients Who Should Not Receive Medication

There is clinical research evidence that there exists a subgroup of schizophrenic patients who should not be treated with neuroleptics. To date there has been no reliable method of identifying these patients. Systematic predictive studies of different subjective experiences of schizophrenia are suggested as a method of elucidating who should or should not receive medication. The studies should focus on patients' psychological experience and attitude toward the illness both during the acute phase and recovery from psychosis and examine their relationship to clinical outcome. Such studies may have utility in developing psychological "markers" for treatment of subtypes.