Psychotic symptoms, functioning and coping in adolescents with mental illness.

BACKGROUND: Psychotic symptoms in the context of psychiatric disorders are associated with poor functional outcomes. Environmental stressors are important in the development of psychosis; however, distress may only be pathogenic when it exceeds an individual's ability to cope with it. Therefore, one interesting factor regarding poor functional outcomes in patients with psychotic symptoms may be poor coping. This paper aimed to address the question whether 1) psychotic symptoms are associated with poorer functioning and 2) whether poor coping moderated the association. METHODS: In a clinical case-clinical control study of 106 newly-referred adolescent patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders, coping was investigated using the Adolescents Coping Scale. Severity of impairment in socio-occupational functioning was assessed with the Children's Global Assessment Scale. RESULTS: Patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders and additional psychotic symptoms (N = 50) had poorer functioning and were more likely to use avoidance-oriented coping compared to patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders without psychotic symptoms (N = 56). No differences were found with respect to approach-oriented coping. When stratifying for poor/good coping, only those adolescent patients with psychotic symptoms who applied poor coping (i.e. less use of approach-oriented coping styles [OR 0.24, p < 0.015] and more use of avoidance-oriented coping [OR 0.23, p < 0.034]) had poorer functioning. However, these interactions were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Non-adaptive coping and poorer functioning were more often present in adolescents with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders and additional psychotic symptoms. Due to small subgroups, our analyses could not give definitive conclusions about the question whether coping moderated the association between psychotic symptoms and functioning. Improvement of coping skills may form an important target for intervention that may contribute to better clinical and functional outcomes in patients with psychotic symptoms.

Neurocognitive performance of a community-based sample of young people at putative ultra high risk for psychosis: support for the processing speed hypothesis.

INTRODUCTION: A wide variety of neurocognitive deficits have been reported for help-seeking individuals who are at clinical or ultra high risk for psychosis based on fulfilling set criteria for prodromal syndromes/at risk mental states. We wished to extend this research by conducting the first population-based assessment of prodromal syndromes and associated neurocognition. METHODS: A sample of 212 school-based adolescents were assessed for prodromal syndromes using the criteria of prodromal syndromes from the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes. The MATRICS consensus neurocognitive battery was used to assess cognitive functioning in this sample. RESULTS: A total of 8% of the population sample of adolescents met criteria for a prodromal syndrome. These adolescents performed significantly more poorly than controls on two tests of processing speed-Trail-Making Test Part A, F=4.54, p < .01, and the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia Symbol Coding task, F=8.26, p < .0001-and on a test of nonverbal working memory-the Wechsler Memory Scale Spatial Span task, F=3.29, p < .05. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents in the community who fulfil criteria for prodromal syndromes demonstrate deficits on a number of neurocognitive tasks. Deficits are particularly pronounced in symbol coding performance, supporting processing speed as a central deficit associated with psychosis risk.

Identification and characterization of prodromal risk syndromes in young adolescents in the community: a population-based clinical interview study.

While a great deal of research has been conducted on prodromal risk syndromes in relation to help-seeking individuals who present to the clinic, there is a lack of research on prodromal risk syndromes in the general population. The current study aimed first to establish whether prodromal risk syndromes could be detected in non-help-seeking community-based adolescents and secondly to characterize this group in terms of Axis-1 psychopathology and general functioning. We conducted in-depth clinical interviews with a population sample of 212 school-going adolescents in order to assess for prodromal risk syndromes, Axis-1 psychopathology, and global (social/occupational) functioning. Between 0.9% and 8% of the community sample met criteria for a risk syndrome, depending on varying disability criteria. The risk syndrome group had a higher prevalence of co-occurring nonpsychotic Axis-1 psychiatric disorders (OR = 4.77, 95% CI = 1.81-12.52; P < .01) and poorer global functioning (F = 24.5, df = 1, P < .0001) compared with controls. Individuals in the community who fulfill criteria for prodromal risk syndromes demonstrate strong similarities with clinically presenting risk syndrome patients not just in terms of psychotic symptom criteria but also in terms of co-occurring psychopathology and global functioning.

Are screening instruments valid for psychotic-like experiences? A validation study of screening questions for psychotic-like experiences using in-depth clinical interview.

Individuals who report psychotic-like experiences are at increased risk of future clinical psychotic disorder. They constitute a unique "high-risk" group for studying the developmental trajectory to schizophrenia and related illnesses. Previous research has used screening instruments to identify this high-risk group, but the validity of these instruments has not yet been established. We administered a screening questionnaire with 7 items designed to assess psychotic-like experiences to 334 adolescents aged 11-13 years. Detailed clinical interviews were subsequently carried out with a sample of these adolescents. We calculated sensitivity and specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for each screening question for the specific symptom it enquired about and also in relation to any psychotic-like experience. The predictive power varied substantially between items, with the question on auditory hallucinations ("Have you ever heard voices or sounds that no one else can hear?") providing the best predictive power. For interview-verified auditory hallucinations specifically, this question had a PPV of 71.4% and an NPV of 90.4%. When assessed for its predictive power for any psychotic-like experience (including, but not limited to, auditory hallucinations), it provided a PPV of 100% and an NPV of 88.4%. Two further questions-relating to visual hallucinations and paranoid thoughts-also demonstrated good predictive power for psychotic-like experiences. Our results suggest that it may be possible to screen the general adolescent population for psychotic-like experiences with a high degree of accuracy using a short self-report questionnaire.

Structural and functional brain correlates of subclinical psychotic symptoms in 11-13 year old schoolchildren.

Studying children experiencing psychotic symptoms provides a unique opportunity to examine the vulnerability to psychosis within the context of development. Using neuroimaging techniques this study investigated cognitive control functions, brain volumetrics and white matter integrity in an at-risk cohort of children. Between-subjects assessment of brain function and structure among 11 school-going, non-treatment seeking children aged 11-13 who were at symptomatic risk for psychosis (AR) and 14 healthy control children aged 11-12 without subclinical psychotic symptoms (CON). MRI assessments included functional measures of response inhibition and error-related processes, whole brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of gray matter (GM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) utilizing fractional anisotropy to probe white matter (WM) integrity. fMRI results showed reduced activity in the AR group within right frontal and bilateral temporal cortex for response inhibition and reduced activity within the anterior cingulate, insula and middle frontal gyrus for error-related processing (p<.05, corrected). VBM analysis revealed GM increases in the AR group within middle and superior temporal gyri, angular gyrus, orbitofrontal gyrus and GM decrease within the inferior temporal gyrus (p<.05, corrected). DTI analysis identified WM decreases in the AR group along the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, cingulum and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (p<.05, corrected). This multimodal investigation revealed aberrant prefrontal-temporal dysfunction in addition to cingulate and insular dysfunctions which provide potential early neurocognitive risk markers related to the susceptibility for developing psychosis and subsequently the neurodevelopmental trajectory leading to schizophrenia.