- Title
- Risk factors for transition to first episode psychosis among individuals with 'at-risk mental states'
- Creator
- Mason, Oliver; Startup, Mike; Halpin, Sean; Schall, Ulrich; Conrad, Agatha; Carr, Vaughan
- Relation
- Schizophrenia Research Vol. 71, Issue 2-3, p. 227-237
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2004.04.006
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2004
- Description
- Recently developed criteria have been successful at identifying individuals at imminent risk of developing a psychotic disorder, but these criteria lead to 50–60% false positives. This study investigated whether measures of family history, peri-natal complications, premorbid social functioning, premorbid personality, recent life events and current symptoms would be able to improve predictions of psychosis in a group of young, help-seeking individuals who had been identified as being at risk. Individuals (N=74) were followed up at least 1 year after initial assessment. Half the sample went on to develop a psychotic disorder. The most reliable scale-based predictor was the degree of presence of schizotypal personality characteristics. However, individual items assessing odd beliefs/magical thinking, marked impairment in role functioning, blunted or inappropriate affect, anhedonia/asociality and auditory hallucinations were also highly predictive of transition, yielding good sensitivity (84%) and specificity (86%). These predictors are consistent with a picture of poor premorbid functioning that further declines in the period up to transition.
- Subject
- risk factors; first episode psychosis; at-risk mental states
- Identifier
- uon:1927
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/27702
- Identifier
- ISSN:0920-9964
- Reviewed
- Hits: 2726
- Visitors: 2162
- Downloads: 0
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format |
|---|