About three-quarters of people with schizophrenia suffer recurrent relapses and continued disability. Outcome appears to be worse in people with the following factors: 1) an insidious onset of symptoms where initial treatment is delayed; 2) social isolation; 3) a strong family history of schizophrenia or other major mental disorder; 4) people living in industrialised countries and urbanised communities; 5) men appear to fair worse than women; and 6) in those people who misuse drugs especially cannabis, and possibly from an early age under 16 years (Jablensky et al 1992). Drug treatment is generally more successful in treating positive.
