Facts
- Schizophrenia affects one in one hundred people
- Schizophrenia occurs all over the world.
- Some patients with schizophrenia only ever suffer from one psychotic episode and some have many over the years.
- Although very rare children of over five years old can develop schizophrenia.
- The most common type of hallucination experienced by schizophrenia sufferers is auditory but patients can also have visual, tactile, gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell) hallucinations.
- Only one third of suffers have paranoid-type symptoms.
- Approximately ten percent of schizophrenia sufferers will commit suicide.
- Young male sufferers are more likely to commit suicide than females.
- Signs and symptoms of schizophrenia usually first manifest in young adulthood and adolescence.
- The rates of schizophrenia are similar in most countries.
- Both sexes are at the same risk of developing the disorder.
- Males usually develop the illness earlier in their life than women.
- The majority of schizophrenia patients suffer throughout their lives whether it is ongoing or recurring.
- Only approximately one in five recover from their schizophrenia completely.
