Predictors of schizophrenia: evidence from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort and other sources.

BACKGROUND: Subtle motor, emotional, cognitive and behavioural abnormalities are often present in apparently healthy individuals who later develop schizophrenia, suggesting that some aspects of causation are established before overt psychosis. AIMS: To outline the development of schizophrenia. METHOD: We drew on evidence from The Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort supplemented by selected findings from other relevant literature. RESULTS: The main known risk factors in development of schizophrenia are genetic causes, pregnancy and delivery complications, slow neuromotor development, and deviant cognitive and academic performance. However, their effect size and predictive power are small. CONCLUSIONS: No powerful risk factor, premorbid sign or risk indicator has been identified that is useful for the prediction of schizophrenia in the general population.

Predictors of female criminality: findings from the Northern Finland 1966 birth cohort.

OBJECTIVE: Females still commit fewer criminal offenses than males, but the percentage of female offending has been increasing during the past few decades. Thus there is a need for original studies into the perinatal contribution to the etiology of female offending. METHOD: A large, prospectively collected birth cohort database of female members (N = 5,056) was available. Information on perinatal biological and psychosocial risks as well as data from the National Crime Registers up to 32 years of age were collected and analyzed by logistic regression and a chi2 automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analysis. RESULTS: The absence of the father during childhood was the strongest risk factor in predicting female criminality (odds ratio 2.5; 95% confidence interval 1.4-4.3). Furthermore, in the families in which the father was present, maternal smoking during pregnancy together with being born unwanted correlated with an increased prevalence of criminal offending significantly up to 7.2%. CONCLUSIONS: CHAID analysis proved to be a useful statistical method in predicting female adult criminality after preceding perinatal risks. It revealed that the risk factors were mainly familial, the paternal factor being the most important one in determining the probability of daughters committing criminal offenses.