Confirmation of the Diagnosis of Schizophrenia After Death Using DSM-IV: a Victorian Experience

The reliability of antemortem diagnoses of schizophrenia using DSM-IV criteria was studied. Retrospective case history reviews were used to determine the diagnoses from DSM-IV criteria & to compare these results to those from DSM-III-IR and ICD-10. 83 subjects were studied, with deaths of 56.6% of these subjects attributed to suicide. According to DSM-IV criteria, 30.1% had been misclassified as having schizophrenia in the police reports, compared to 36.1% using DSM-III-R & 51.8% with ICD-10.