The British Journal of Psychiatry 152: 625-628 (1988)
© 1988 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Schizophrenic first-rank symptoms in organic mental disorders
A Marneros
Universitats-Nervenklinik, Bonn West Germany.
The frequency of schizophrenic first-rank symptoms (FRS) were investigated
in 1698 patients with an organic mental disorder (OMD) according to
Schneider's and DSM-III criteria: 7% of the patients with OMD had FRS,
compared with 47% of schizophrenic patients. However, the frequency of FRS
depends on the state of consciousness and on the aetiology of the OMD: 20%
of the patients with clear consciousness had FRS, but only 1.5% of those
with clouded consciousness. In cases of some aetiologically defined groups
of OMD, such as post-ictal epileptic psychoses or alcoholic hallucinosis,
the frequency of FRS is similar to that in cases of schizophrenia. FRS
appear to be psychotic reaction patterns whose substrate-related basis
extends across the whole spectrum of endogenous and exogenous psychoses.