Impact of childhood trauma on positive and negative symptom remission in first episode psychosis

Marita Pruessner*, Suzanne King, Franz Veru, Inga Schalinski, Nadia Vracotas, Sherezad Abadi, Gerald Jordan, Martin Lepage, Srividya Iyer, Ashok K. Malla, Jai Shah, Ridha Joober

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Objective: Early life adversity is suspected to play an important role for onset and course of psychosis, but its relationship with longer-term clinical outcome is not entirely clear. In this longitudinal study, we investigated the impact of childhood trauma (CT) on positive and negative symptom remission in first episode psychosis (FEP) patients over two years.

Methods: A total of 210 FEP patients were assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients reporting moderate to severe trauma (CT; N = 114; 54.3%) were compared to those without trauma (N-CT; N = 96; 45.7%). Positive (PSR) and negative symptom remission (NSR) were determined monthly over 24 months following established criteria using the Scale for Assessment of Positive Symptoms and the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Global Functioning was evaluated at baseline and 24 months of follow-up.

Results: Compared to N-CT patients, CT patients had achieved significantly lower rates of PSR at 12 months and significantly lower rates of NSR at 24 months. A dose-response relationship was observed between the number of trauma categories fulfilled and the number of patients not achieving PSR and NSR at these time points. Higher trauma scores were significantly associated with poor functioning and higher positive and negative symptom severity at 24 months, but not at baseline and 12 months of follow-up.

Conclusion: Differential effects of CT on clinical outcome may not be apparent at psychosis onset, but only become evident through poor symptomatic remission and general functioning over time. Targeted diagnostic and therapeutic efforts after illness onset might limit these detrimental consequences.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)82-89
Number of pages8
JournalSchizophrenia Research
Volume231
Early online date31 Mar 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award and funding from the Golden Family Foundation to MP, funding from the joint program of the Fonds de Rechereche du Québec Santé (FRQS) and the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS) to SK and RJ (# 24501-2041 ) J, and a grant by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to ML and AM (# 68961 ). JS reports research funding from FRQS, and ML and RJ report salary support from FRQS. We would like to thank Ms. Nicole Pawliuk for help with data management for the study and the PEPP clinical and research teams for their help with patient recruitment.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

  • Childhood trauma
  • Early life adversity
  • First episode psychosis
  • Schizophrenia
  • Symptom remission

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Psychiatry and Mental health
  • Biological Psychiatry

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