• Ayako Kaneda, Norio Yasui-Furukori, Manabu Saito, Norio Sugawara, Taku Nakagami, Hanako Furukori, and Sunao Kaneko.
• Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine, Hirosaki-Aiseikai Hospital, Hirosaki, Japan.
• Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2010 Apr 1; 64 (2): 141-8.

AimsA tree-drawing test acts as both a projective psychological examination as well as a supplementary psychodiagnostic tool. There is little information relating the characteristics of schizophrenia and the tree-drawing test. The present study compared the structural and morphological differences in the results of the tree-drawing test between schizophrenic patients and healthy individuals, as well as between schizophrenic patients who responded well to treatment and those who responded poorly.MethodsThe subjects included 202 chronic schizophrenic patients and 113 healthy individuals. The schizophrenic patients were categorized as 'good responders' or 'poor responders' based on their response to medical treatments. The tree-drawing test was performed on all subjects. The tree drawn by each subject was analyzed structurally and morphologically.ResultsThere were significant differences between the trunk and branches drawn by schizophrenic patients and those drawn by healthy controls. There were no significant differences between the good responders and the poor responders in any aspect of the tree drawings. Multiple regression models showed that the ratio of the tree area to the total area of the drawing paper, the width of the trunk, the trunk base opening, and the size of the branch ends were significantly associated with schizophrenia.ConclusionThe present study suggests that the trees drawn by schizophrenic patients are significantly different from those drawn by healthy individuals, but among schizophrenic patients, it is difficult to distinguish between good responders and poor responders using the tree-drawing test.

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