Schizophrenia
A psychotic disorder diagnosed through longitudinal assessment of persistent psychosis, functional change and exclusion of mood, substance-related and medical causes, requiring urgent risk management and coordinated long-term care.
Definition
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder characterised by persistent positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations or disorganisation, negative symptoms and often cognitive or functional impairment. Diagnosis is specialist and longitudinal, with mood, substance-related, delirium and medical causes assessed.
First principles
Psychosis is a clinical syndrome, not a single diagnosis
Hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thinking or behaviour and negative symptoms can occur in schizophrenia, affective psychosis, substance-related states, delirium and neurological or endocrine disease. The key diagnostic work is therefore longitudinal: define the symptoms, time course, functional change, mood relationship, substance exposure and physical context before labelling the illness.
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