Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Schizophrenia is a complex mental health disorder that encompasses a wide range of symptoms. In order to reduce the symptoms associated with the disorder, an antipsychotic regimen is typically recommended. Despite advances in pharmacological interventions for the treatment of schizophrenia, a large percentage of patients are treatment resistant. This subset of treatment resistant patients is estimated to be between 20-30% of those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Research has indicated that schizophrenia results from the interplay between multiple factors, which can result in alterations to the biological aging process. The objective of our study was to assess whether individuals with treatment resistant schizophrenia have alterations in biological aging patterns compared to those with non-treatment resistant schizophrenia. In addition, we assessed whether life-time events, such as childhood trauma, or traits, such as insight or personality domains, are predictive of treatment resistant status. For our initial study, the treatment resistance status of 124 patients was determined following the American Psychiatric Association guidelines. Changes to biological aging were assessed using four aging clocks – Horvath DNAm, Hannum DNAm, Horvath Skin & Blood, and PhenoAge. The results of our study indicated no significant difference in biological aging between our two study groups. For our second study, we determined the treatment resistance status of 105 patients. Participants were assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Birchwood Insight Scale, and the Neo Five-Factor Inventory as predictors of treatment resistance status. The results of this study indicated that the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Birchwood Insight Scale, NEO extraversion, NEO openness, NEO agreeableness and NEO coconsciousness scores were not able to detect treatment resistance status. Our results for the NEO Neuroticism score indicated that a higher score was associated with a decreased likelihood of treatment resistance.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Chaudhary, Zanib
Institution: University of Toronto
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7132916746