Treatment of Schizophrenia: A Comparative Study of Five Treatment Methods.

This ambitious study presents the findings of a ten-year collaborative effort by the author and his co-workers to evaluate the effectiveness of five commonly used modalities of treatment for hospitalized patients suffering from schizophrenic disorders. A total of 228 patients, in what the author terms the middle third prognostic range, were treated either by ataractic drugs, psychotherapy, ECT, milieu, or a combination of drugs and psychotherapy at the Camarillo State Hospital in California, in an effort to evaluate these modalities. Criteria used in evaluating patient status included length of hospital stay, release rate, numerous clinical rating scales applied by nurses, psychotherapists, and an independent team of psychoanalysts, as well as a variety of psychological tests. The statistics of these results are presented liberally throughout the text and an honest effort to discuss various pitfalls of evaluation is made. The author's basically practical orientation as a hospital administrator is reflected by