Effects of age of onset on clinical characteristics in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Yia-Ping Liu¹  Yu-Chen Kao² 

[1] Department of Physiology and Biophysics, National Defense Medical Center, No.161, Section 6, Min-Chuan East Road, 114, Taipei, Taiwan;Department of Psychiatry, Songshan Armed Forces General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan;

关键词: Schizophrenia;    Schizophrenic Patient;    Schizophrenia Patient;    Schizoaffective Disorder;    Illness Duration;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-10-63

 received in 2010-03-09, accepted in 2010-08-18,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundOver the last few decades, research regarding the age of onset of schizophrenia and its relationship with other clinical variables has been incorporated into clinical practices. However, reports of potential differences in demographic and clinical characteristics between early- and adult-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders have been controversial. Thus, this study aims to assess differences in demographic and clinical characteristics correlated with age of illness onset in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.MethodsData were collected from 104 patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Diagnosis was made via structured clinical interviews. Assessments of psychiatric symptoms and social and global functioning were completed. The effect of age of onset on demographic and clinical variables was examined using correlation analyses and binary logistic regression models. We chose 17 years of age as the cut-off for early-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders based on a recent clinical consensus. We further investigated differences in the severity of psychopathology and other clinical variables between the early- and adult-onset groups.ResultsThe binary logistic regression analysis showed that age of onset was significantly related to the cognitive component of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) (odds ratio, OR = 0.58; 95% confidence interval, CI = 0.872-0.985; p < 0.001) and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) score (OR = 0.94; 95% CI = 0.447-0.744; p = 0.015). Patients with early onset of schizophrenia spectrum disorders had significantly greater levels of cognitive impairment and higher impulsivity. There were significant differences between several demographic and clinical variables, including the negative symptom component of the PANSS (p < 0.001), cognitive component of the PANSS (p < 0.001), BIS score (p = 0.05), and psychological domain of quality of life (QOL) (p = 0.05), between patients with early- and adult-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders, having controlled for the effect of the current age and duration of illness.ConclusionsOur findings support the hypothesis of an influence of age of onset on illness course in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This finding may in fact be part of a separate domain worthy of investigation for the development of interventions for early symptoms of schizophrenia.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Kao and Liu; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010