Reliability and Validity of the PANSS Negative Symptom Factor Score in Outpatients with Schizophrenia Prescribed Select Antipsychotics and with Prominent Negative or Disorganized Thought Symptoms

• Analyses were conducted to assess: – Test-retest reliability (between all postbaseline visits for the subset of patients with no change in Clinical Global Impression-Severity – Negative Symptoms [CGI-S-N] score) – Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) – Construct validity (correlation between the scales [Spearman correlation with Fisher transformation] and 1-way analysis of variance [ANOVA] using CGI-S-N scores of 4 [moderate], 5 [marked], and 6 [severe] as groups) – Ability to detect change/responder criteria (level of change on the Personal and Social Performance scale [PSP] from baseline to week 8 associated with either a 20% improvement in NSFS, a Clinical Global Impression-Improvement [CGI-I]-N score of 1 or 2, or both criteria combined) RESULTS • The majority of patients were male (64%) and white (66%). The age ranged from 18 to 60 years, with a median age of ~40 years. All patients had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, mostly of the paranoid type (70% to 80%), with a mean age at first diagnosis of ~28 years and mean duration of disease of ~1 1.5 years (range, 0 to 51 years).