Detecting specific patterns of change in patients with schizophrenia: a latent class analysis

Background/Objectives: Describing and predicting the developmental course of disease in patients with severe mental illness is a central theme in psychiatric inquiries. Latent growth modelling approaches, such as latent class growth analysis, have been increasingly recognised for their usefulness in identifying homogeneous subpopulations within the larger heterogeneous population as well as meaningful groups or classes of individuals. This study focuses on latent class analysis as a means to represent the various courses of disease in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. We examine two rese…