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

Dolores Moreno (1) , Miguel Moreno-Iñiguez (1) , Dolores Vigil (2) , Josefina Castro-Fornieles (3) , Felipe Ortuño (4) , Ana González-Pinto (5) , Mara Parellada (1) , Inmaculada Baeza (5) , Soraya Otero (6) , Montserrat Graell (7) , Ana Aldama (5) , Celso Arango (1)

1 Dept. of Psychiatry, Adolescent Unit
2 Epidemiology Department
3 Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic of Neurosciences IDIBAPS (Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi Sunyer)
4 Dept. of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology
5 Stanley Institute International Mood-Disorders Research Center 03-RC-003
6 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit, Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychology
7 Section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology

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%,  < 0.05) and among them, showed the greatest difference between groups (12.7% vs. 2.1%,  < 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.

Mots clés: early psychosis; first onset; case-control; OCS

Dolores Moreno, Miguel Moreno-Iñiguez, Dolores Vigil, Josefina Castro-Fornieles, Felipe Ortuño, et al.. Obstetric complications as a risk factor for first psychotic episodes in childhood and adolescence. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2009, 18 (3), pp.180-184. ⟨10.1007/s00787-008-0692-x⟩. ⟨hal-00486567⟩