Adult psychosis, common childhood infections and neurological soft signs in a national birth cohort.

Background: Neurological soft signs preceding adult-onset schizophrenia suggest a neurodevelopmental origin and could reflect physical illness in childhood.

Aims: To investigate possible associations of adult-onset psychosis with neurological soft signs and common infectious illnesses in childhood.

Method: Using data from the UK National Child Development Study, a longitudinal general population sample, odds ratios were calculated for clinical diagnoses of common childhood viral illnesses and later adult psychotic illness, childhood epilepsy and a range of neurological soft signs.

Results: The number of illnesses per individual did not relate either to the number of soft signs, or to any particular adult outcome. Schizophrenia, affective psychosis and epilepsy were not associated with common childhood illness but were associated with neurological soft signs and an increased, but small, frequency of previous meningitis and tuberculosis.

Conclusions: Overall the data support the notion of neurological soft signs as markers of disordered neurodevelopment in schizophrenia (but the early neurological abnormalities are not caused by infectious illness) and an association between meningitis or tuberculosis in childhood and a small proportion of cases of epilepsy, affective psychosis and schizophrenia.