ABSTRACT
Schizophrenia is a treatable disorder and some patients are able to maintain employment despite persisting symptoms and/or disability. Schizophrenia has been noted in all cultures throughout recorded history. In the 19th century, the French psychiatrist Benedict Morel, who observed rapid intellectual deterioration in a young teenage boy from a good student to one with confused thoughts and grossly disorganized behaviour over a few months, named the disorder demenceprecoce. Schizophrenia is an illness with an unclear aetiology, which is likely to be both complex and multifactorial and to involve gene-environment(s) interaction. Adolescent and adult psychosocial stressors, including first- and second-generation migration, and innercity environment, and, in some cases, substance misuse, are all associated with onset, maintenance and relapse of schizophrenia. Patients can present with sudden onset of severe disturbance, characterized by strange beliefs and grossly abnormal behaviour.
