Duration of psychosis and negative symptoms

Early interventions for people with psychosis is increasingly recognised as important. Psychologists call the time between people first developing symptoms of psychosis and the start of their treatment duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). The evidence about the links between longer DUP and the negative symptoms of psychosis - flat emotions, poverty of speech, inability to experience pleasure, lack of desire to form relationships and lack of motivation - is inconsistent so a team of researchers from Helsinki University studied 41 people going through their first episode of psychosis. The study found that a longer DUP was associated with more negative symptoms.

Grano, Niklas ... [et al] - Duration of untreated psychosis is associated with more negative schizophrenia symptoms after acute treatment for first-episode psychosis Clinical Psychologist March 2010, 14(1), 10-13