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Obstetric complications as a risk factor for first psychotic episodes in childhood and adolescence

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Abstract

There are reports of significant association between obstetric complications (OC) and childhood psychosis. Authors conducted a case-control study of 102 children and adolescents with a first episode psychosis (FEP) and 94 healthy controls (HC), using the obstetric complications scale (OCS) and their medical records, to examine the risk of FPE. Patients were recruited from child and adolescent psychiatry units at six university hospitals and controls from publicly-funded schools of similar characteristics and from the same geographic areas. A logistic regression was performed to quantify the risk of psychosis in childhood and adolescence, based on OC, adjusting for potential confounding factors like socio economic status (SES) and family psychiatric history (FPH). OC appeared more frequently in the records of patients. Significant differences between patients and controls were found in Prenatal OC (15.7% vs. 5.3%, P < 0.05) and among them, bleeding in pregnancy showed the greatest difference between groups (12.7% vs. 2.1%, P < 0.01). In the logistic regression, bleeding in pregnancy showed a crude odds ratio (OR) of 6.7 (95%CI = 1.4–30.6) and 5.1 (CI 95% = 1.0–24.9) adjusted for SES and FPH. Therefore, bleeding in pregnancy is a likely risk factor for early-onset psychosis.

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Acknowledgments

“CIBER 07/09, CIBER de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM). Supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III”. This work was presented as a poster at the 2007 International Congress on Schizophrenia Research, in Colorado Springs (Colorado, USA), which took place between March 28 and April 2, 2007.

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Correspondence to Dolores Moreno MD.

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Moreno, D., Moreno-Iñiguez, M., Vigil, D. et al. Obstetric complications as a risk factor for first psychotic episodes in childhood and adolescence. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 18, 180–184 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0692-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0692-x

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