Is paranoid schizophrenia the most common subtype?

We compared the subtype diagnoses of schizophrenia (ICD-10) of 58 Japanese and 61 European psychiatrists matched for clinical experience using 10 case summaries. As a result, there are marked differences between Japanese and European psychiatrists in the mode of subtype diagnoses of schizophrenia rather than in the clinical pictures of the patients themselves; the hebephrenic type (F20.1) was more likely to be diagnosed by Japanese psychiatrists, while the paranoid type (F20.0) was more frequently diagnosed by European psychiatrists. Japanese psychiatrists take into account the patient's age at onset and the clinical course of the disease in identifying the subtype, while European psychiatrists tend to focus on the presenting symptoms, particularly paranoid symptoms.