Childhood Adversities Increase the Risk of Psychosis: A Meta-analysis of Patient-Control, Prospective- and Cross-sectional Cohort Studies

By F. Varese, F. Smeets, M. Drukker, R. Lieverse, T. Lataster, W. Viechtbauer, J. Read, J. van Os, R. Bentall. Schizophrenia bulletin, 2012

2,385 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Evidence suggests that adverse experiences in childhood are associated with psychosis. To examine the association between childhood adversity and trauma (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, neglect, parental death, and bullying) and psychosis outcome, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, and Web of Science were searched from January 1980 through November 2011. We included prospective cohort studies, large-scale cross-sectional studies investigating the association between childhood adversity and psychotic symptoms or illness, case-control studies comparing the prevalence of adverse events between psychotic patients and controls using dichotomous or continuous measures, and case-control studies comparing the prevalence of psychotic symptoms between exposed and nonexposed subjects using dichotomous or continuous measures of adversity and psychosis. The analysis included 18 case-control studies (n = 2048 psychotic patients and 1856 nonpsychiatric controls), 10 prospective and quasi-prospective studies (n = 41 803) and 8 population-based cross-sectional studies (n = 35 546). There were significant associations between adversity and psychosis across all research designs, with an overall effect of OR = 2.78 (95% CI = 2.34–3.31). The integration of the case-control studies indicated that patients with psychosis were 2.72 times more likely to have been exposed to childhood adversity than controls (95% CI = 1.90–3.88). The association between childhood adversity and psychosis was also significant in population-based cross-sectional studies (OR = 2.99 [95% CI = 2.12–4.20]) as well as in prospective and quasi-prospective studies (OR = 2.75 [95% CI = 2.17–3.47]). The estimated population attributable risk was 33% (16%–47%). These findings indicate that childhood adversity is strongly associated with increased risk for psychosis.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e74a0894053502319556985b4d9811ec75c1f7bd

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Citations in the corpus

Rethinking Interdisciplinarity across the Social Sciences and Neurosciences (2015, background): “There is a growing body of evidence that links traumatic and other kinds of adverse experiences to the development of psychosis and other forms of mental illness (Varese et al. 2012).”
The digital revolution and its impact on mental health care. (2019, background): “The so-called psychosocial determinants of mental health include adversities such as poverty, living in urban environments, poor housing, belonging to an ethnic minority, childhood maltreatment and bullying (Varese et al., 2012), just to name a few.”
The origins of voices: links between life history and voice hearing in a survey of 100 cases (2013, background): “…with previous research demonstrating associations between voice hearing and traumatic life events (e.g., Read et al., 2005; Shevlin et al., 2011; Varese et al., 2012), and the likelihood of individuals in psychiatric services to report a high volume of negative, persecutory voices (e.g., Andrew…”
No more psychiatric labels: Why formal psychiatric diagnostic systems should be abolished (2014, positive): “…Romme, Buiks, Delespaul, & van Os, 2002; Goodman, Rosenberg, & Mueser, 1997; Greenfield, Strakowski, Tohen, Batson, & Kolbrener, 1994; Honig, Romme, Ensink, Pennings, & de Vries, 1998; Morrison, Frame, & Larkin, 2003; Mueser et al., 1998; Read, Agar, Argyle, & Aderhold, 2003; Varese et al., 2012).”
Lest we forget: Comparing retrospective and prospective assessments of adverse childhood experiences in the prediction of adult health (2016, background): “In particular, childhood exposures to adverse conditions, including abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction, have been linked to numerous physical diseases and psychological problems (Afifi et al., 2008; Anda et al., 2006; Benjet, Borges, & Medina-Mora, 2010; Felitti et al., 1998; Green et al., 2010;”
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists clinical practice guidelines for the management of schizophrenia and related disorders (2016, background): “Some migrant groups have substantially higher risks of schizophrenia (Bourque et al., 2011; Cantor-Graae and Selten, 2005), and people born and raised in urban areas have an increased risk of schizophrenia, compared with those born and raised in rural settings (Vassos et al., 2012).”
The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders? (2014, background): “…having many different psychiatric outcomes, including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, behavior disorders, and substance-use disorders (Green et al., 2010; Scott, Smith, & Ellis, 2010), as well as schizophrenia, psychosis, and psychotic-like experiences and symptoms (Varese et al., 2012).”
Stress and neuroinflammation: a systematic review of the effects of stress on microglia and the implications for mental illness (2016, background): “Large-scale epidemiological studies have shown that stress, both early in childhood and later in life, predisposes to the development of mental health problems in adulthood (Scott et al. 2012; Varese et al. 2012; Benjet et al. 2010; Kessler et al. 2010).”
Psychological Formulation as an Alternative to Psychiatric Diagnosis (2018, background): “This acknowledges the large and growing body of research that indicates a causal role for these events in many or most mental health presentations (Read & Bentall, 2012; Varese et al., 2012).”