Thought disorder in patients with schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings and relations with family functions

Aim: Aim of this study is to compare thought disorder in patients with schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings with healthy controls and to determine its relation with clinical factors and family functions.Method: There are 40 schizophrenia patients diagnosed according to DSM IV, 40 siblings whose psychiatric disease was excluded with SCID I interview and 40 healthy controls in our sample. Thought and Language Index ( TLI) and Family Assesment Device (FAD) were given to each three groups. Severity of disease was assessed with PANSS and CGI-S. Each three groups were compared according to TLI and FAD. We compared relation between clinical data and TLI in patient group, TLI and FAD in patient and sibling group.Results: Patients with schizophrenia had high TLI scores than the unaffected siblings and healthy controls. Although there was no statistically significance, the siblings of schizophrenia patients had lower scores than patients, but higher scores than controls. The poverty of speech scores of schizophrenic patients and their siblings were found significantly different than controls. Except behaviour control, the families of schizophrenia patients and their siblings were failed in the other areas of FAD. There was a significant correlation between TLI and FAD scores of patients.Conclusion:We determined that unaffected siblings of patients with schizophrenia had worse thought disorder than normals, better than schizophrenia patients although there was no statistically significance. It is controversial that though disorder is an endophenotypical characteristic for schizophrenia and there is a benefit in investigating it in larger groups. Otherwise this study supports that poverty of speech can be an endophenotype candidate. In this study, we found both in schizophrenia patients and their unaffected siblings had worse family functions compare to normal controls. Also, there was a significant correlation between thought disorder and a corruption in family functions. Damaged family structure may be related to development of thought disorder in patients and probably in siblings or can be developed in consequence of schizophrenia.