One of the main validation criteria for psychotic disorders is the stability over time.

The diagnostic evaluation of a group of subjects who presented with a first episode of psychosis, after 10 years of evolution.

To evidence certain factors that might be associated with diagnostic stability.

The study was conducted on a sample of 79 patients who had a first admission in the Psychiatry Clinic of Timisoara, between 1999–2000. There was a cross-sectional analysis of the sample at three intervals (at onset and after 5, respectively 10 years). The parameters we have observed were, as follows: socio-demographical (gender, age at onset, educational level) and clinical-evolutionary (diagnostic, according to the ICD-10).

At the last evaluation, the sample consisted of only 48 subjects, of which 22 (45.83%) had no change in diagnostic, other 22 subjects (45.83%) had suffered a change in diagnostic during the first 5 years after onset, and 4 more subjects (8.33%) had had a change in diagnostic during the first 10 years of evolution. The onset diagnostics, F23 and F32, had later changed towards a different nosological framing. We could not evidence any factors that had an influence on the stability of the diagnostic over time.

The stability of the clinical diagnostic is not a main coordinate of the first episode of psychosis.