SCHIZOPHRENIA - HOW MANY SUFFERERS?

Schizophrenia is the most common form of severe mental illness and is potentially very disabling.

There are approximately 250,000 people suffering from schizophrenia in the UK - one out of every hundred people will probably experience the illness before they reach the age of 45.

The best way to describe schizophrenia is that a person's thoughts, feelings and actions are somehow disconnected from each other so that what a person says may be out of keeping with what they do or feel. The symptoms of the illness can be divided into positive symptoms and negative symptoms.

Positive symptoms include hallucinations such as seeing or hearing something that is not there; delusions such as feeling that you are someone famous or that people are watching you. Negative symptoms affect a person's energy, emotional life and 'get up and go'. S/he may find it difficult to meet people, communicate or take part in family life.

The onset of schizophrenia occurs most frequently in young people, often when they are in their late teens and early twenties. Every year in Britain around 35,000 people are admitted to hospital suffering from the illness - that's more people than those admitted suffering from cancer and heart disease combined.