Year: 2019
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Trauma has been consistently associated with psychosis risk; however, the specificity of childhood trauma to individual attenuated positive psychotic symptoms among non-help-seeking individuals has not yet been adequately explored, as only one study to date has examined this relationship among help-seeking individuals and focused only on violent vs. non-violent traumatic events, rather than specific types of traumas. We examined the relationship between childhood trauma (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) with type of positive symptom, as measured by the Structural Interview for Psychosis-risk Syndromes (SIPS) among a sample of non-help-seeking undergraduates at a large, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse urban university (n= 130). Simple linear regressions revealed that any childhood trauma was significantly associated with increased disorganized communication in young adulthood [β = .35, t(128) = 4.15, p < .001]. Childhood sexual abuse also predicted increased disorganized communication [β = .28, t(128) = 3.34, p =.001]. Additionally, childhood emotional neglect was significantly associated with increased suspiciousness/persecutory ideas [β = .32, t(128)= 3.76, p <.001]. This study is the first to identify specific attenuated positive psychotic symptoms linked to childhood traumas in a non-help-seeking sample. Specifically, our results suggest that there are differential influences of trauma type on specific positive symptom domains, which could be of potential use to future identification and prevention efforts.
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin
Authors: Arielle Ered, Lauren Ellman
Institution: Temple University
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2938042557