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A Better Outlook for Schizophrenics Living in Extended Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

M. Fakhr El-Islam*
Affiliation:
Ministry of Public Health, PO Box 42, Doha, Qatar

Summary

Cases of schizophrenia and schizophreniform attacks living in extended families have been compared to cases with similar diagnoses in nuclear families. Both diagnostic groups living in extended families presented earlier; they had lower rates of withdrawal symptoms and higher rates of behavioural disturbances and subjective suffering. Inter-generational conflict was a significantly more common precipitating factor in patients living in extended families; this was therapeutically utilized to induce family support. Patients from extended families had a lower tendency to deteriorate into withdrawn, affectively blunted residual states.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1979 

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