Question pretext
During the last 12 months, have you experienced any of the following…
For the following questions, the interviewer must read out a series of symptoms and determine if the respondent had any of those symptoms in the last 12 months. The point of asking symptom-related questions is to screen those individuals who might have a specific health condition or disease. Because there could be a number of symptoms that characterise a given health condition, and because some symptoms may be common to different conditions, it is important that the interviewer probe for each symptom to see whether the respondent may have an active disease. It is also important that the time
period for the symptoms (in the last 12 months) be clearly understood by the respondent and not confused with other time frames used in this section such as "ever" and "the last 2 weeks". Confusion of the time frame may render results incomparable.
Interviewer instructions
Patients with schizophrenia sometimes are convinced that they have some thoughts in their mind which are note their own: that some special mechanisms are installed in their house (walls, floor, ceiling, TV, Radio, etc.), personal objects (glasses, hat, etc), or the body, that control their mind, read their thoughts. They may also feel that their thoughts
are being extracted from their minds or somehow being made public. The purpose of the question is to find out if the respondent has any such unusual experiences.
