Long-Term Follow-Up Study of Schizophrenic Patients

Introduction IN 1955 Hoch¹proclaimed that better evaluation of psychiatric therapies can be accomplished only by improved methodology, better agreement as to criteria of improvement, more adequately controlled experimental design, fewer reports on observations of a testimonial nature rather than on scientific, factual evidence, and more adequate follow-up studies. In accordance with these postulates we sought to evolve a research design which would include multiple approaches and methods of measurement including psychiatric evaluation, psychometric examination, social case study, and an adequate follow-up study. Our experimental design for a study begun in 1955 and published in 1959 in book form²included four groups of 20 patients each. All of the patients were male schizophrenics, previously untreated for that disorder, and none had previously received tranquilizing drugs. The four groups were: (1) a chlorpromazine group; (2) a reserpine group; (3) a hospital routine group