Morbidity and mortality among schizophrenic patients

There is substantial evidence that patients with schizophrenia have higher mortality rates than the general population. This increased mortality is not readily explained. Physicians are sometimes unaware of the presence of physical illness among schizophrenics. Any psychiatric symptom can be caused or aggravated by medical illness, yet psychiatrists and other physicians too often fail to recognize medical illness in patients presenting with what appear to be psychiatric complaints. The higher mortality of schizophrenics raises the possibility of a multisystem group of disorders in which schizophreniform symptomatology is only one aspect of the clinical manifestation.