Open AccessComorbidity in Schizophrenia: Conceptual Issues and Clinical Management
Author(s) -
Hussain Muhammad Abdullah,
Hameed Azeb Shahul,
MeiYuh Hwang,
Stephen J. Ferrando
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
focus/focus (american psychiatric publishing. online)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1541-4108
pISSN - 1541-4094
DOI - 10.1176/appi.focus.20200026
Subject(s) - biopsychosocial model , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , research domain criteria , comorbidity , psychosocial , psychiatry , psychology , clinical psychology , perspective (graphical) , psychotherapist , paradigm shift , cognition , clinical trial , medicine , philosophy , epistemology , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science
Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder that affects cognitive, perceptual, and emotional functioning. The currently available evidence suggests heterogenous intertwining of biological and psychosocial etio-pathogeneses. Clinical and research interests in the comorbidity issues of schizophrenia were borne out of the real-world clinical challenges that patients often present with multiple coexisting psychopathologies as well as comorbid medical conditions. The recent DSM-5 shift toward a symptom dimensional-based perspective, the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative to examine biopsychosocial pathogeneses in mental illness, and the FDA's emphasis on real world-based clinical trial criterion all have promoted a shift in clinical research that has facilitated understanding and treatment of comorbidity in schizophrenia. This emerging conceptual shift as well as pharmacological developments that address the multidimensional pathogeneses in schizophrenia may pave the way for a better understanding and treatment.