Schneider's First Rank Symptoms: An international and interethnic comparative study

419 patients in Sri Lanka, 150 patients in U.K. and 172 patients in Canada who were suffering from "Functional Psychoses" were interviewed using the Present State Examination to elicit Schneider's First Rank Symptoms (FRS). Nationality and ethnicity were found to be significant variables associated with lower prevalence of FRS. Higher prevalence of cultural and subcultural beliefs among ethnic minorities may contribute towards this lower prevalence but a true reduction also appears to be present. Prevalence of some individual FRS also vary with ethnicity and nationality. Universally, FRS had a good discriminative value.