Anxiety and ego strength as predictors of response in schizophrenic patients.

Hypotheses, derived from existing psychological formulations of schizophrenia, that degree of manifest anxiety and ego strength would be positively related to response to treatment were examined in a sample of 50 male and 50 female first admission schizophrenics. Scales (Baron, 1953a; Taylor, 1953) purported to assess these variables did not predict treatment outcome for the combined groups. However, in analyses broken down by sex both predictors were significantly related to outcome criteria, but in consistently opposite directions for men and women. The markedly different results for men and women are interpreted in terms of the sex-role appropriateness of the behavior sampled by the predictor measures. (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)