Zahid Nazar, Fazle Rabbani, Gohar Ali, Nazish Zahoor, Sibtain Lawangeen, Naila Riaz Awan.
Duration of illness, symptoms and functional recovery in patients suffering from Schizophrenia.
J Pak Psych Soc Jan ;10(2):77-80.

Objective: To assess the symptomatic and functional recovery with long duration of illness of schizophrenics at baseline and after at 5 years follow up Design: Descriptive observational study. Place and Duration of study: This study was conducted at department of Psychiatry Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar from May 2008 to March 2013. Subject and Methods: A sample of 44 patients diagnosed as schizophrenics and was included through consecutive sampling. These patients were part of a project known as SMI (i.e. Severe Mental Illness), they came for regular assessment once in a month. These patients were assessed on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) at baseline and at five years follow up. Results: Statistically significant difference was found between scores of PANSS and GAF at baseline and follow up in both groups. Conclusion: we concluded from our study that patient who had 1-5 and 6-10 years of duration of illness both showed significant improvement on PANSS and GAF at baseline and at follow up.

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