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Kraepelin divided psychotic disorders into schizophrenia and bipolar disorder based on the presumption that the former followed a deteriorating course and the latter a remitting and relapsing one. In a multisite, 1.5-year prospective study in Germany and Austria, researchers examined features that might transcend the divisions among these disorders and others (major depressive disorder, bipolar I and II disorders, schizoaffective disorder, brief psychotic disorder, schizophreniform disorder, and schizophrenia) in a discovery sample of 765 patients. The results were confirmed in a separate validation sample of 458 patients.
Using diverse measures of symptoms and functioning, the investigators identified five syndromes:
Affective psychosis: var…