Dr. Diana O. Perkins from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains in a statement that historically, the prevailing view has been "it just doesn't matter when you treat a person because their clinical outcome is predetermined."
However, a report in the October American Journal of Psychiatry
Perkins tells Reuters Health, "On average, there is a delay of over a year -- or longer -- from the time that the symptoms of schizophrenia first emerge to the time that the person first receives treatment. The main result of this meta-analysis is that the sooner treatment is started, the better the clinical and functional outcome."
