Physical appearance and poor hygiene patterns: evidence of schizophrenic illness

Objectives: To determine the physical appearance and personal hygiene patterns of patients with schizophrenia in a form of behavioural checklist to explain their evident function in diagnosing schizophrenia. Methodology: The study comprised in-out patients of schizophrenia through purposive sampling technique that was conducted in two phases. In phase- I, 32 diagnosed patients were approached while for phase-II, 75 patients were diagnosed with the developed diagnostic checklist. The process involved recording the physical appearance and personal hygiene patterns in the form of video recordings. The videos were analysed through committee approach in order to formulate a diagnostic checklist of schizophrenia. The validation of the developed checklist was done through additional study on professionals including psychiatrists and psychologists having their expertise in the field to verify the indicators, consigned by the committee, as evident signs of schizophrenia. The validation of the checklist leads to Phase-II in order to find out the diagnostic accuracy of the developed tool in clinical settings. The findings were calculated in the form of frequency counting and percentages. Results: in our study, 53% of the schizophrenics had dirt in the body, hands and feet while 41% were untidy in their appearance. 64% clinicians identified untidiness as a schizophrenic hygiene pattern whereas 92% revealed dirtiness as an indication of schizophrenia. The number of patients diagnosed through ckecklist was 73 while patients diagnosed by professionals were 75, with 97% diagnostic accuracy. Conclusion: The developed diagnostic checklist, diagnosed the patients of schizophrenia with high accuracy and thus poor hygiene patterns and bizarre physical appearances were useful indicators of schizophrenia.