[Further research into the formation of the "vitality and adequacy of emotion-emotional blunting" relationship in paranoid schizophrenia].

A sample of 100 paranoidal schizophrenic patients were assessed. Scales of "vitality and the adequacy of emotion" and "emotional blunting" which are described in a separate paper were used. At the beginning attention was focused on the fact that several synonimous terms are used to describe the blunting of emotion (flatness of affect, blunted or inappropriate affect, presence of affect as opposed to flatness). The results indicate that in only a very few cases the intensity of both studied qualities was negligible, however in the majority of the cases it appeared that the quality of "vitality" and its opposite is present. In 62 patients the emotional blunting was moderate. Emotional vitality in these cases remained in the wide range from moderate to significant. Both factors may be considered to be additional factors on the basis of the size and type of correlation. The coefficient of both Scales is expressed by r = -0.77. The correlation between the studied proportion and the syntonic-autistic proportion is expressed by r = 0.69. The cases of emotional blunting which occurred at different levels of intensity were generally accompanied by relative vitality and adequate emotional reaction. The formation of the studied proportion and in particular the high correlation coefficient between this proportion and the syntonic-autistic proportion suggests that autistic schizophrenia and syntonic schizophrenia form two basic subgroups of paranoidal schizophrenia.