This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Depression  • Schizophrenia  • Diagnosis  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Syndromes and Dimensions

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55:508-509.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

PSYCHIATRIC nosology has been too long the province of speculation and pronouncement, particularly in the area of psychotic disorders, where powerful empirical studies are rare.

WHAT WE DID

Our study¹ began with a large epidemiological sample of treated patients with psychotic and affective illness studied an average of 15 years after onset. Based on personal interviews and review of hospital records, we blindly coded symptom and outcome data. We submitted these data to a latent class analysis (LCA): a statistical technique that attempted to explain the observed distribution of symptoms in these probands as resulting from a small number of discrete syndromes.²

In light of the comments by Crow,³ it is important to emphasize the difference between LCA and factor analysis. Factor analysis, like a psychometrican, groups questionnaire items into scales. Latent class analysis, like a nosologist, groups patients into diagnostic classes. Latent class analysis is an agnostic, statistical analog of the approach . . . [Full Text of this Article]

WHAT WE FOUND

DR CROW'S COMMENTS

CONCLUSIONS


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLES

The Structure of Psychosis: Latent Class Analysis of Probands From the Roscommon Family Study
Kenneth S. Kendler, Laura M. Karkowski, and Dermot Walsh
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55(6):492-499.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

From Kraepelin to Kretschmer Leavened by Schneider: The Transition From Categories of Psychosis to Dimensions of Variation Intrinsic to Homo sapiens
Tim J. Crow
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55(6):502-504.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Interleukin-1 cluster is associated with genetic risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Papiol et al.
J. Med. Genet. 2004;41:219-223.
FULL TEXT