Subjective Symptoms in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder and Remitted Schizophrenia Patients: A Comparative Study

BACKGROUND: Subjective experience means subtle, not yet psychotic abnormalities of experience that might be present during remitted phase and also in prodromal phase of schizophrenia and might be accurately efficient in identifying individuals at risk of eminent psychosis (Parnas et al., 2003). Apart from schizophrenic patients, bipolar patients also experience certain subjective symptoms in their euthymic state. They often experience subtle cognitive impairment and functional disturbances during their euthymic states. These subjective experiences may be related to distorted cognitive functions in these patients. These experiences include a great variety of cognitive dysfunction complaints about attention, perception, memory, thinking, language, movement, and emotion. OBJECTIVE: To measure the experience of subjective symptoms and compare them between euthymic bipolar and remitted schizophrenia patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty euthymic bipolar patients and 30 remitted schizophrenia patients as per International Classification of Diseases Tenth Revision were selected for the purpose of the study. At first, sociodemographic data were collected. And then, the patients were assessed using the scales; positive and negative syndrome scale, Young Mania Rating Scale, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, and Frankfurt Complaint Questionnaire-24. RESULTS: Both the groups showed significant differences in terms of subjective symptoms. However, no significant correlation has been found between the objective psychopathology and subjective experience in the two groups. CONCLUSION: It can be suggested that the patients with schizophrenia show significantly higher subjective experience when compared with the patients of bipolar disorder.