Why isn't schizoaffective getting researched more?

Why isn't schizoaffective getting researched more?
Schizophrenia is getting researched a lot and also bipolar and depression, but somehow not really schizoaffective disorder. Why is that?

I know schizoaffective is somehow in between schizophrenia and mood disorders, but my feeling is that it's still somehow it's own entity.

Jasper wrote:Why isn't schizoaffective getting researched more?
Schizophrenia is getting researched a lot and also bipolar and depression, but somehow not really schizoaffective disorder. Why is that?

I know schizoaffective is somehow in between schizophrenia and mood disorders, but my feeling is that it's still somehow it's own entity.

This is a good question, my best guess is because they assume it researching the other two will cure this, and/or that more fatal illnesses such as multiple sclerosis are being researched the most first. I can understand the latter, but the former doesn't make sense to me. Maybe there's logic behind this, or maybe it's something else entirely... I am sorry, I just don't know for sure.

Hm, maybe because schizoaffective is more rare than bipolar and schizophrenia are?

Jasper wrote:Hm, maybe because schizoaffective is more rare than bipolar and schizophrenia are?

It is? How rare is it? I heard it was 1% of Americans (unsure if it's the same across the world), same as schizophrenia give or take .5% or so.

hm, i guess it depents on how you dx it.
I heared that as dx Bipolar and Schizophrenia is prefered and not so much schizoaffective disorder. I actually don't know for sure how much Bipolar is, but it also depents how you dx it. About 3% so far I know. Some think more, some think less. Yes, schizophrenia I also read about 1% and schizoaffective I read today about 0.3% to 0.8%, but that one study sugested that it's possible that upto 30% of inpatients might have it. The problem is to dx it correctly and to distinguish it from other disorders. But it seemed to need a very long time in most cases to identify it correctly.

Jasper wrote:hm, i guess it depents on how you dx it.
I heared that as dx Bipolar and Schizophrenia is prefered and not so much schizoaffective disorder. I actually don't know for sure how much Bipolar is, but it also depents how you dx it. About 3% so far I know. Some think more, some think less. Yes, schizophrenia I also read about 1% and schizoaffective I read today about .03% to 08.%, but that one study sugested that it's possible that upto 30% of inpatients might have it. The problem is to dx it correctly and to distinguish it from other disorders. But it seemed to need a very long time in most cases to identify it correctly.

This seems accurate, especially in that people need time to dx it correctly. It's hard for me to explain all my symptoms, partially because I am extremely uncomfortable doing so, partially because my memory is deteriorating (or it feels like it is) and I can't draw on it very well anymore, so any information I could give may be somewhat inaccurate.

I know that I have intrusive thoughts, and I know that I have had delusions. When under extreme mood shifts, my schizo symptoms can get magnified as well. I just don't know. Like you said in your other thread, I am extremely sensitive to sounds (and visual motion and light as well). I can't help but wonder how this is all related.

i kind of misstrust studies who say how many ppl of the population have this or another psychiatric disorder. Because in reality many many ppl get miss-dx and in many cases it takes years to find out the right dx combination. Also in many cases it's also a matter of interpretation what to dx best.
I also have the feeling that many psychiatrists don't really care that much and don't take that much time in dx a certain disorder. Also some disorders seem to be more "popular" in the dx system than others and it also depents on the psychiatrist.

... but actually I'm a bit off-topic I guess.

I just find that psychiatric-dx are interesting and most disordes I got dx with later on, I found out by myself beforehand. But I've to say my father was a psychotherapist and I have some of his books and bought some more about psychiatry by myself. But my father can't help me with my issues anymore, because he passed away in 2003.
Actually I also didn't thought that I've Schizoaffective Disorder until resently, eventhough I knew that I've mood symptoms and clearly some schizo-symptoms. I want to get evaluated for it, but I'm not sure how, since I misstrust psychiatrists. But I need better treatment, I mean psychiatric drugs. I'm taking something for my depressions and so on, but no antipsychotic and the last time I took antipsychotics I got severe side effects.

So I guess that just the "big disorders" are getting really researched. Noone really researches brief psychotic episodes, or PDD-NOS or Bipolar-NOS and so on, just the "big names" are getting really researched, like Schizophrenia, Bipolar or autism, ADHD and so on and Schizoaffective is "someting" in between and not really with it's own symptoms. The symptoms in schizoaffective can all also be found in other disorders. But the thing is that there is no standard on how to treat Schizoaffective best, because noone really researched that.

Sorry for my off-topic. It sometimes happenes that my mind wanders off, if I find something else interesting.

Jasper wrote:i kind of misstrust studies who say how many ppl of the population have this or another psychiatric disorder. Because in reality many many ppl get miss-dx and in many cases it takes years to find out the right dx combination. Also in many cases it's also a matter of interpretation what to dx best.
I also have the feeling that many psychiatrists don't really care that much and don't take that much time in dx a certain disorder. Also some disorders seem to be more "popular" in the dx system than others and it also depents on the psychiatrist.

... but actually I'm a bit off-topic I guess.

I just find that psychiatric-dx are interesting and most disordes I got dx with later on, I found out by myself beforehand. But I've to say my father was a psychotherapist and I have some of his books and bought some more about psychiatry by myself. But my father can't help me with my issues anymore, because he passed away in 2003.
Actually I also didn't thought that I've Schizoaffective Disorder until resently, eventhough I knew that I've mood symptoms and clearly some schizo-symptoms. I want to get evaluated for it, but I'm not sure how, since I misstrust psychiatrists. But I need better treatment, I mean psychiatric drugs. I'm taking something for my depressions and so on, but no antipsychotic and the last time I took antipsychotics I got severe side effects.

So I guess that just the "big disorders" are getting really researched. Noone really researches brief psychotic episodes, or PDD-NOS or Bipolar-NOS and so on, just the "big names" are getting really researched, like Schizophrenia, Bipolar or autism, ADHD and so on and Schizoaffective is "someting" in between and not really with it's own symptoms. The symptoms in schizoaffective can all also be found in other disorders. But the thing is that there is no standard on how to treat Schizoaffective best, because noone really researched that.

Sorry for my off-topic. It sometimes happenes that my mind wanders off, if I find something else interesting.

I didn't even realize you were off topic until you said so. I can't focus on anything so I hardly take offense. What you've posted is extremely interesting and makes me want to learn more, even. Thank you for sharing! I agree with what you are saying, too, it makes a lot of sense.

Well, one of the reasons why I dont think it's been researched more is that nobody quite knows how to diagnose it.

(correct me on this if I'm wrong) with the DSM V, the criteria changed. It changed from "one psychotic episode independent of depression and mania" to "multiple psychotic episodes over a long course of time, independent of depression and mania"

zrcalo wrote:Well, one of the reasons why I dont think it's been researched more is that nobody quite knows how to diagnose it.

(correct me on this if I'm wrong) with the DSM V, the criteria changed. It changed from "one psychotic episode independent of depression and mania" to "multiple psychotic episodes over a long course of time, independent of depression and mania"

You are right that the diagnostic criteria changed, but a lot of dx criteria changed. Especially in personality disorders and also ADHD got more strict, because they thought it's clearly overused and also autism. And all of them are researched well.

The DSM 5 workgroup mentioned as a reason:

"a recent review of psychotic disorders from large private insurance and Medicare databases in the U.S. found that the diagnosis of DSM-IV schizoaffective disorder was used for about a third of cases with non-affective psychotic disorders. Hence, this unreliable and poorly defined diagnosis is clearly overused."

Some psychiatrists used schizoaffective as a dx when they knew its either an affective disorder with psychotic features or schizophrenia, but they either had no time to find out exactly or it wasn't totally clear or the psychiatrist was too unexperienced and so just used schizoaffective as a label. So schizoaffective was used from some psychiatrist as a dx when they didn't know exactly what's wrong with the patient. So the dx didn't have much stability. Many who received the dx got re-dx later on. Also some psychiatrists think schizoaffective is not a valid scientific entity. But the thing is that there is a lot of overlap in symptoms both in SSD and mood disorders and also. A whole bunch of genes are the same for both bipolar and schizophrenia. So out of this perspective schizoaffective as a dx makes sense, but my personal opinion is without further research they also don't find out exactly how to dx schizoaffective best, what the outcome is, how to treat those patients best and so on.

The dx criteria in the DSM 5 for schizoaffective are:
http://anp.sagepub.com/content/47/10/89 ... nsion.html