ABSTRACT
Few topics in psychiatry have been researched as frequently over as long a period of time as has recovery from schizophrenia. Ever since Emil Kraepelin focused on the deteriorating course of the illness in defining dementia praecox, psychiatrists throughout the Western world have been interested in comparing the recovery rates of their patients with those of other physicians. More than a hundred longterm outcome studies of schizophrenia were published in Europe and America during the twentieth century and several thousand studies of the short-term effect of different treatment methods were carried out. Despite this volume of work, however, a clear picture of long-term outcome in schizophrenia has not emerged.
