Demographic aspects of functional psychoses in Canada

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Abstract
Canadian national data for functional psychoses (classified as schizophrenia, affective psychoses, paranoid states and reactive psychoses) were analyzed for age, sex, marital status, expectancy for 1st admissions and length of stay for discharges. Differences were found such that each psychosis could distinguished from the others, providing indirect evidence supporting the use of the different diagnoses. The demographic characteristics of reactive psychoses from North American data were similar to Scandinavian descriptions. Sex ratios for subgroup diagnoses showed similarities between catatonic schizophrenics, manic (bipolar) affectives and reactive psychoses. Schizoaffective psychoses resembled affectives more than schizophrenia, and paraphrenia was similar to affectives. Total expectancies for functional psychosis (4.4% for men, 5.5% for women) were similar to Scandinavian figures, but the distribution by diagnosis differed perhaps representing different diagnostic practices, but generally similar sex ratios and high rates in single persons were found.