The effects of recent stressful life events on outcomes in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis: results from the longitudinal EU-GEI high-risk study.

Background: Recent stressful life events (SLE) are a risk factor for psychosis, but limited research has explored how SLEs affect individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. The current study investigated the longitudinal effects of SLEs on functioning and symptom severity in CHR individuals, where we hypothesized CHR would report more SLEs than healthy controls (HC), and SLEs would be associated with poorer outcomes.

Methods: The study used longitudinal data from the EU-GEI High Risk study.

Sex-specific association between schizophrenia polygenic risk and subclinical schizophrenia-related traits.

Background: According to the dimensional view of psychiatric disorders, psychosis is expressed as a continuum in the general population. However, the investigation of the putative genetic aetiological continuity between its clinical and subclinical phenotypes has yielded mixed results. We aimed to replicate previous findings regarding the association of polygenic risk for schizophrenia with subclinical traits (i.

Why do some Mexicans with psychosis risk symptoms seek mental health care and others do not?

Help-seeking barriers differ according to the sociocultural context and country-specific mental healthcare system. More research is needed in low-middle-income countries, where early psychosis programs are still scarce, and the mental health care gap is wide. This study aims to explore predisposing, enabling, and need factors associated with mental health service utilization in 481 Mexicans self-reporting psychosis risk symptoms, as well as differences between those who were currently mental health service users (MHSU) and those who were not (non-MHSU).

Do Cognitive Subtypes Exist in People at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis? Results From the EU-GEI Study.

Background And Hypothesis: Cognition has been associated with socio-occupational functioning in individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P). The present study hypothesized that clustering CHR-P participants based on cognitive data could reveal clinically meaningful subtypes.

Study Design: A cohort of 291 CHR-P subjects was recruited through the multicentre EU-GEI high-risk study.

Association of Positive, Negative, and Disorganized Schizotypy With the Temporal Dynamics of Schizotypic Experiences in Daily Life.

Background And Hypothesis: Schizotypy is a useful and unifying construct for examining the etiology, development, and expression of schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology. The positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy dimensions are associated with distinct patterns of schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms and impairment. Furthermore, they are differentiated by mean levels of psychotic-like, suspicious, negative, and disorganized schizotypic experiences in daily life, and by temporal dynamics of affect.

A longitudinal study of the impact of childhood adversity dimensions on social and psychological factors and symptoms of psychosis, depression, and anxiety.

The present study examined three empirically-derived childhood adversity dimensions as predictors of social, psychological, and symptom outcomes across three prospective assessments of a young adult sample. Participants were assessed five times over eight years with semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The analyses used the dimensions underlying multiple subscales from well-established childhood adversity measures administered at the first two assessment waves (described in a previous report).

Spanish Adaptation of the Mentalization Questionnaire (MZQ) in Community Adolescents and Adults.

Background: Despite the role of mentalization in mental health outcomes and prevention, psychometrically-evaluated screening measures for mentalization remain sparse. One widely-used mentalization questionnaire is the Mentalization Questionnaire (MZQ; Hausberg et al., 2012), which we aimed to adapt and validate for use in Spanish.

Emotional self-knowledge profiles and relationships with mental health indicators support value in 'knowing thyself'.

"Know thyself" may be indicated by a balanced high pairing of two emotional self-knowledge indicators: attention to emotions and emotional clarity. Closely associated but often evaluated separately, emotional clarity is consistently, inversely associated with psychopathology, while evidence regarding attention to emotions is less consistent. Variables of high/low emotional clarity and attention to emotions yielded four emotional self-knowledge profiles which were analyzed for associations with mental health indicators (depression and anxiety symptoms, self-esteem, self-schema, resiliency, transcendence) in n = 264 adolescents.

I don't understand how I feel: mediating role of impaired self-mentalizing in the relationship between childhood adversity and psychosis spectrum experiences.

Introduction: Childhood adversity is associated with the severity of multiple dimensions of psychosis, but the mechanisms underpinning the close link between the two constructs is unclear. Mentalization may underlie this relationship, as impaired mentalizing is found in various stages of the psychosis continuum. Nonetheless, the differential roles of self- and other-mentalizing in psychosis are not well understood.

Empirically-derived dimensions of childhood adversity and cumulative risk: associations with measures of depression, anxiety, and psychosis-spectrum psychopathology.

Investigating different approaches to operationalizing childhood adversity and how they relate to transdiagnostic psychopathology is relevant to advance research on mechanistic processes and to inform intervention efforts. To our knowledge, previous studies have not used questionnaire and interview measures of childhood adversity to examine factor-analytic and cumulative-risk approaches in a complementary manner. The first aim of this study was to identify the dimensions underlying multiple subscales from three well-established childhood adversity measures (the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Interview, and the Interview for Traumatic Events in Childhood) and to create a cumulative risk index based on the resulting dimensions.

Schizophrenia polygenic risk score in psychosis proneness.

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a complex disorder with a highly polygenic inheritance. It can be conceived as the extreme expression of a continuum of traits that are present in the general population often broadly referred to as schizotypy. However, it is still poorly understood how these traits overlap genetically with the disorder.

Social connectedness and resilience post COVID-19 pandemic: Buffering against trauma, stress, and psychosis.

The present study investigated psychosocial predictors of psychosis-risk, depression, anxiety, and stress in Croatia two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the existing transgenerational war trauma and associated psychiatric consequences in Croatian population, a significant pandemic-related deterioration of mental health was expected. Recent studies suggest that after an initial increase in psychiatric disorders during the pandemic in Croatia, depression, stress, and anxiety rapidly declined.

Serum immune markers and transition to psychosis in individuals at clinical high risk.

Individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis have been found to have altered cytokine levels, but whether these changes are related to clinical outcomes remains unclear. We addressed this issue by measuring serum levels of 20 immune markers in 325 participants (n = 269 CHR, n = 56 healthy controls) using multiplex immunoassays, and then followed up the CHR sample to determine their clinical outcomes. Among 269 CHR individuals, 50 (18.

A psychosocial pathway to paranoia: The interplay between social connectedness and self-esteem.

The quantity and quality of social contacts have been related to self-esteem, and both social relationships and self-esteem have been implicated in the pathways to paranoia. However, how social relationships interplay with self-esteem to trigger paranoia is not well understood. This study aims to investigate whether different measures of social connectedness (social support, loneliness, and desired friendship), as well as the frequency of social contact, impact paranoia and other positive and negative psychotic-like experiences (PLE) through the indirect effect of self-esteem.

Psychosocial factors associated with the risk of developing psychosis in a Mexican general population sample.

Epidemiological evidence has linked an array of sociodemographic and psychosocial factors with an increased risk of developing psychosis. However, research in samples from low- and middle-income countries is still scarce. This study used a Mexican sample to explore (i) sociodemographic and psychosocial differences between individuals with and without a positive screen for Clinical High-Risk for psychosis (CHR), and (ii) sociodemographic and psychosocial factors associated with screening positive for CHR.

Replication of the associations of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy with interview-assessed symptoms and impairment: Convergence with previous studies.

Schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology appears best understood as being expressed across a continuum of clinical and subclinical symptoms and impairment referred to as schizotypy. This brief report describes a comprehensive replication study examining the associations of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy with interview ratings of impairment, psychopathology, and personality pathology in a sample of 161 young adults. Consistent with past studies, positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy had distinct and hypothesized associations with symptoms and impairment.

Affective dynamics in daily life are differentially expressed in positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy.

Schizotypy and schizophrenia are associated with disruptions in the experience of affect. Temporal patterns of affect, or affective dynamics, offer unique information about the expression of multidimensional schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology. The present study employed experience sampling methodology to examine affective intensity, inertia, variability, reactivity, and instability in positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy in nonclinically ascertained young adults ( = 275).

Speech Illusions in People at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Linked to Clinical Outcome.

Background And Hypothesis: Around 20% of people at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis later develop a psychotic disorder, but it is difficult to predict who this will be. We assessed the incidence of hearing speech (termed speech illusions [SIs]) in noise in CHR participants and examined whether this was associated with adverse clinical outcomes.

Study Design: At baseline, 344 CHR participants and 67 healthy controls were presented with a computerized white noise task and asked whether they heard speech, and whether speech was neutral, affective, or whether they were uncertain about its valence.

Association of Multidimensional Schizotypy with PID-5 Domains and Facets.

The underlying vulnerability for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders is expressed across a continuum of clinical and subclinical symptoms referred to as schizotypy. Schizotypy is a multidimensional construct with positive, negative, and disorganized dimensions. The present study examined associations of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy with pathological personality traits and facets assessed by the Personality Inventory for (PID-5) in 1,342 young adults.

Loneliness and psychosocial predictors of psychosis-proneness during COVID-19: Preliminary findings from Croatia.

The present study investigated psychosocial predictors of psychosis-risk, depression, anxiety, and stress in Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given Croatia's recent transgenerational war trauma and the relative lack of available prodromal data, this study presents a unique opportunity to examine the impact of loneliness and other psychosocial factors on psychosis-risk and mental health in this population. 404 Croatian participants completed an anonymous online survey of physical and mental health questions.

Differential trajectories of tobacco smoking in people at ultra-high risk for psychosis: Associations with clinical outcomes.

Objective: People at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis have a high prevalence of tobacco smoking, and rates are even higher among the subgroup that later develop a psychotic disorder. However, the longitudinal relationship between the course of tobacco smoking and clinical outcomes in UHR subjects is unknown.

Methods: We investigated associations between tobacco smoking and clinical outcomes in a prospective study of UHR individuals ( = 324).