Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness characterized by symptoms eg hallucinations, disorganized thinking, loss of goal-directed behaviors and deterioration in social role functioning.
Positive or psychotic symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, and distorted perceptions.
Negative symptoms include flat or blunted emotions, lack of motivation or energy, lack of pleasure or interest in things, and limited speech.
Disorganized symptoms are confused thinking, disorganized speech and behavior.
Cognitive symptoms include impairment in attention verbal fluency memory, and executive functioning.