The daily association between positive affect and psychotic experiences in individuals along the early stages of the psychosis continuum.

Introduction: Psychosis often develops gradually along a continuum of severity. Little is known about the role of protective factors such as positive affect (PA) in the development of psychotic experiences (PEs). This study investigated i) the temporal (between-day) and contemporaneous (within-day) daily associations between PA and PEs in individuals at different early clinical stages for psychosis and ii) whether these associations differed per clinical stage. Methods: Daily diary data for 90 days came from 96 individuals at risk for psychosis, distributed over four subgroups defined according to the clinical staging model (stages 0-1b). We constructed multilevel models with PA as a predictor of PEs and vice versa. We investigated within- and between-person temporal and contemporaneous associations and tested whether these associations differed among early stages with multilevel moderation analyses. Results: We found no within-person temporal effects between PA and PEs in either direction. Contemporaneously, current-day PA predicted current-day PEs (B = -0.14, p < 0.001) and vice versa (B = -0.61, p < 0.001). Between persons, more 90-day PA predicted fewer PEs in the temporal model (B = -0.14, p = 0.03). In addition, more 90-day PEs predicted PA in the temporal (B = -0.26, p < 0.001) and contemporaneous (B = -0.36, p < 0.001) models. The contemporaneous association between PA and PEs was stronger in individuals at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis than in earlier stages. Discussion: Our study supported a significant within-day, bidirectional relationship between PA and PEs. This suggests that a focus on PA and methods to improve PA may be an important addition to early intervention practices, particularly in those at UHR for psychosis.

The associations between daily reports of loneliness and psychotic experiences in the early risk stages for psychosis.

AIM: Bi-directional associations between loneliness and psychotic experiences (PEs) have been reported, but the mechanisms underlying these associations are unknown. This study aims to explore associations between daily reports of loneliness and PEs, and test differences in this association across young adult individuals at different levels of risk for psychosis. METHODS: We analysed 90-day diary data on loneliness and PEs from N = 96 participants (mean age 24.7, range 18-35, 77% female) divided into 4 subgroups, each indexing increased levels of risk for psychosis according to the clinical staging model: 'psychometric' (n = 25), 'low' (n = 27), 'mild' (n = 24), and 'ultra-high'(n = 20) risk. Multilevel vector autoregressive models examined within-day (contemporaneous) and between-day (temporal) associations between loneliness and PEs for the total sample. Next, these associations were compared across subgroups. RESULTS: Loneliness and PEs were significantly associated contemporaneously (partial correlation B = 0.14) but not temporally. Subgroup membership moderated both contemporaneous and temporal associations. The contemporaneous association between loneliness and PEs was stronger in the low-risk subgroup compared to the mild-risk (B = -0.35, p < .01) and ultra-high-risk (B = -0.36, p < .01) subgroups. The temporal association between loneliness on the previous day and PEs on the current day was stronger in mild-risk subgroup compared to the ultra-high-risk subgroup (B = -0.03, p = .03). After adjusting for multiple testing, only the contemporaneous-but not the temporal-associations remained statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Loneliness is associated with PEs in individuals at risk for psychosis, particularly in those with low to mild symptoms. Our findings tentatively suggest that especially individuals with low expressions of PEs may be more sensitive to social context, but future studies are needed to replicate and further unravel the potentially stage-specific interplay between social context and PEs.