Syndromes, antecedents, and outcomes of psychosis: A cluster-analytic study.

Sought mental illness definitions through the use of the bc try computer system and 1,099 patient records of a modern mental health center. Results of other investigations that had used objective syndrome finding techniques were utilized as the hypotheses, and 8 of 9 predicted syndromes were discovered. Altogether, 11 replicated syndromes appeared. The attempt to relate a set of illness outcome variables to the syndromes, including some variables describing conditions antecedent to hospitalization, was less successful. Findings are discussed in terms of relationships between the syndrome and the feasibility of using record system data for research. (36 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)