Acute psychotic disorders are described as a clinical syndrome characterized by Acuteness of the installation, the intensity and the polymorphism of delirium.

Describe the demographic characteristics of a population of patients with an acute psychotic disorder and identify factors correlated with evolution to schizophrenia.

This is a retrospective, descriptive and analytic study conducted on hospitalized patients in psychiatric department EPS Mahdia for acute psychotic disorder according to DSM-VI-TR criteria. A study of the recurrence time was performed by Kaplan–Meier and Cox test was used to identify factors correlated with evolution to schizophrenia.

One hundred and eleven patients were collected. The average age of the study population was 27 years, a male predominance was noted (59.5%), 39.6% of patients had family history of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenic disorders and bipolar disorder were the most common with rates of 63.6 and 18.4% of cases. For our patients, 38.7% progressed to schizophrenia. Four risk factors were significantly predictive of progression to schizophrenia: male gender (P = 0.026), subacute or progressive onset disorders (P = 0.003), partial remission of the disorder (P = 0.023) and the prolonged duration of untreated psychosis (P = 0.027).

The evolution of an acute psychotic disorder remains unpredictable. In fact, the severity is related to the risk of developing schizophrenia or mood disorder. Attention is paid in recent years to recognize and seek most precociously as possible factors associated with this evolution.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.