Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disorder - the most chronic and disabling of the severe mental illnesses. The first signs of schizophrenia, which typically emerge in young people in their teens or twenties, are confusing and often shocking to families and friends.

Hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, unusual speech or behavior, and social withdrawal impair the ability to interact with others. Most people with schizophrenia suffer chronically or episodically throughout their lives, losing opportunities for careers and relationships.1

They often are stigmatized by lack of public understanding about the disease. However, several new antipsychotic medications developed within the last decade, which have fewer side effects than the older medications, in combination with psychosocial interventions have improved the outlook for many people with schizophrenia.

Some Facts About Schizophrenia

-- In the U.S., approximately 2.2 million adults, or about 1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year, have schizophrenia.

-- Rates of schizophrenia are very similar from country to country-about 1 percent of the population.

-- Schizophrenia ranks among the top 10 causes of disability in developed countries worldwide.

-- The risk of suicide is serious in people with schizophrenia.

News and entertainment media tend to link mental illnesses including schizophrenia to criminal violence. Most people with schizophrenia, however, are not violent toward others but are withdrawn and prefer to be left alone. Drug or alcohol abuse raises the risk of violence in people with schizophrenia, particularly if the illness is untreated, but also in people who have no mental illness.

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