BACKGROUND An association between deafness and paranoid psychosis has often been reported. They are very few studies about middle ear disease being the etiological factor in some cases of schizophrenia. Also, there is opportunity to look for laterality of ear disease in schizophrenics. We wanted to study the association of ear pathology in schizophrenia and determine laterality of ear disease in schizophrenics.
METHODS For this study 60 outdoor patients were selected of which one group contained 30 patients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia according to ICD-10. They underwent examination by ENT surgeons to look for any middle ear disease and other group of 30 patients were diagnosed as having middle ear disease by the same ENT surgeon which then were assessed for any psychotic symptoms. For rating of psychiatric symptoms, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale was administered. Later 3…
