Abstract
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that often affects young people of productive age. The illness disrupts daily functioning of patients, their social relationships, and can lead to permanent disability.
In most cases, several years before the onset of the disease, a prodromal phase develops, which is characterized by proliferation of neurobiological changes. On a behavioral level these changes manifests themselves in cognition, perception, affect, or communication.
One approach to early detection of a developing psychotic disease is examination of "basic symptoms" in people who seek psychiatric help. Individuals with basic symptoms are at higher risk for the development of a psychotic illness.
Through early detection of basic symptoms, there is a possibility to influence positively the course of the illness. The aim of our paper is to present to the Czech mental health professionals the concept of basic symptoms and to contribute to diagnosis of psychotic disorders.
In addition, we also introduce a Czech translation of a semistructured interview called Schizophrenia Proneness Instrument, which is used to examine the presence of basic symptoms. Two scales of this interview are described in detail: scale of cognitive and scale of perceptual basic symptoms.