Objective: Psychotic symptoms are prevalent in both clinical settings and the general population. The distribution of psychotic symptoms across patients with different types of psychotic and non-psychotic mental disorders is helpful for understanding symptom specificity. This study aimed to explore the distribution differences of psychotic symptoms in an outpatient population in terms of frequency, age, gender, and psychotic and non-psychotic disorders.

Methods: Outpatients were recruited consecutively at their first visit to the Shanghai Mental Health Center. Psychotic symptoms over the preceding year were self-reported through the PRIME Screen-Revised (PS-R) questionnaire. Seven categories of psychotic symptoms were grouped: perplexity and delusional mood (Item-1,5); first rank symptoms (Item-3,6,11); overvalued beliefs (Item-2,4); suspiciousness/persecutory ideas (Item-7), grandiose ideas (Item 8), perceptual abnormalities (Item-9,10), and disorganized communication (Item-12). Comparisons were made with respect to age group, sex, and diagnostic category.

Results: Of 2542 outpatients, 1448(57.0%) were screened as positive, which was defined as having two or more symptoms with at least “somewhat agree” scores, ranging from 0 to 6. The threshold of one or more “yes” items was an endorsement to categorize the participant as positive for psychotic symptoms. The frequency of psychotic symptoms declined with age. Younger patients tended to report more psychotic symptoms than older patients(p < .001). Suspiciousness(p = .038) and disorganized communication (p = .004) were more common in females than males. Age, first rank symptoms, suspiciousness/persecutory ideas, grandiose ideas, and perceptual abnormalities were found to significantly differ between psychotic and non-psychotic disorders.

Conclusions: Psychotic symptoms appear to be common in the clinical population and represent nonspecific indicators of psychopathology. The difference between psychotic and non-psychotic psychopathologies is more a function of the presence, frequency, and severity of psychotic symptoms.

目的：精神病性症状在临床环境和普通人群中都很普遍。不同类型的精神病和非精神病性精神障碍患者中精神病症状的分布有助于理解症状的特异性。本研究旨在探讨门诊人群中精神病症状在频率，年龄，性别，精神病和非精神病性疾病方面的分布差异。

方法：首次访问上海精神卫生中心的门诊患者是连续招募的。前一年的精神病症状通过PRIME Screen-Revised（PS-R）问卷进行自我报告。精神病症状分为七类：困惑和妄想（项目1-5）；头等症状（Item-3,6,11）; 被高估的信念（条款2.4）；可疑/迫切想法（第7项），宏大想法（第8项），感知异常（第9,10项）和沟通混乱（第12项）。对年龄组，性别和诊断类别进行了比较。

结果：在2542名门诊患者中，有1448名（57.0％）被筛查为阳性，这被定义为具有两种或多种症状，且至少具有“某些同意”的评分，范围为0至6。一个或多个“是”的阈值认可将参与者归类为精神病症状阳性。精神病症状的发生率随着年龄的增长而下降。年轻患者往往比年老患者报告更多的精神病症状（p <.001）。女性比男性更可疑（p = .038）和沟通混乱（p = .004）。发现年龄，头等症状，可疑/迫害观念，宏大观念和知觉异常在精神病性和非精神病性疾病之间存在显着差异。

结论：精神病性症状在临床人群中似乎很常见，并且代表了心理病理学的非特异性指标。精神病性和非精神病性精神病理学之间的差异更多地取决于精神病性症状的存在，频率和严重性。