Abstract
Objective:
To ex am ine changes in prev a lence rates of treated schizo phre nia over 10 years in a small urban teach ing cen tre us ing data from the Kingston Psy chi at ric Re cord Link age Sys tem (KPRLS).
Method:
The KPRLS, a psy chi at ric case reg is ter es tab lished in 1984, col lects and links de mo graphic, di ag nos tic, and ser vice use in for ma tion for all psy chi at ric in pa tients, out pa tients and emer gency con tacts at the 3 hos pi tals in Kingston, On tario. A pre lim inary com par i son of first ad mis sions for schizophrenia used chart review (1976–1978) and KPR LS data (1996–1998). The KPRLS data were used to cal cu late pop u la tion-based prev a lence rates of treated schizo phre n ia in 3 cen sus years (1986, 1991, 1996) for pa tients in the 2 coun ties clos est to Kingston.
Results:
The pre lim i nary com par i son showed a 42% de crease in the num ber of first-admission schizo phre nia cases over 20 years. In the main study, the an nual in pa tient prev a lence rates de creased sig nif i cantly (52%) from 1986 to 1996 with no cor re spond ing change in out pa tient rates, re gard less of sex. Al though to tal ma jor af fec tive dis or ders in creased, this was due to an in crease in m ajor de pres sion, not bi po lar dis or der.
Conclusions:
This is the first Ca na dian case-register study to sup port the widely re ported fall ing rates of schizo phre nia in other parts of the world over the last 40 years. Since this is a geo graph i cally lim ited prev a lence study based on only 10 years of data, further re search over lon ger pe ri ods of time in other re gions of the coun try is re quired to sup port or re fute these find ings.