Duration of untreated negative symptoms and duration of active negative symptoms: proof of concepts

Aim: Negative symptoms are responsible for enormous burden in schizophrenia; yet they remain under‐recognized and under‐treated. There is mounting evidence that early intervention is crucial and that response to treatment falls away with chronicity. Current measures of illness duration fail to adequately capture the true time course of negative symptoms and new concepts are required to correct this and to focus clinical attention. The aim of this paper is to introduce accurate measures of negative symptom duration. Methods: Two new concepts, the duration of untreated negative symptoms (DUNS) and the duration of active negative symptoms (DANS), were trialled in a first‐episode sample with primary negative symptoms. Results: The new measures were easy to calculate and more accurately reflected the total duration of negative symptoms than currently available measures. The mean duration of untreated psychosis was 23 weeks, whereas the DUNS was 93.79 weeks. Conclusions: Applicability of the concepts needs confirming by replication with a larger cohort. Introduction of these concepts may have widespread implications for the timely and efficient treatment of negative symptoms and the reduction of the total burden of illness of schizophrenia within society.