[Regression analysis of clinical data for purposes of predicting the efficacy of psychopharmacotherapy of episodes of schizophrenia].
Validity of a multidimensional statistics procedure for the prediction of the psychotropic drugs efficacy (PDE) was tested in a study on 60 schizophrenics showing the signs of an acute condition before treatment. Pretreatment ratings of 78 psychopathological symptoms underwent a computer analysis. A multiple stepwise regression equation was obtained which predicted PDE using ratings of 15 symptoms. A high correlation between the predicted and actual PDE was shown at cross-validation (r = +0.87), as well as a higher proportion of the PDE variance explained by the "regression" predictor rather than traditional "syndromal" one or the former's combination with the diagnosed type of the course (42%, 57.4% and 71.9%, respectively). Some methodological problems (homogeneity of patients and treatment conditions, the adequacy of the mathematical model applied) are discussed.