Influence of demographic characteristics on attenuated positive psychotic symptoms in a young, help-seeking, at-risk population.

ABSTRACT

AIM: Presentation of attenuated positive psychotic symptoms (APS) was reported to be modestly influenced by age, sex and education in a psychosis-risk sample. We re-examined the influence of demographic variables on APS in an independent psychosis-risk sample. METHOD: In a clinical high-risk-sample (N = 188; 13-35 years; 60.1% men), bivariate correlations were examined with Spearman correlations. All other associations were computed with generalized linear models. RESULTS: Inter-correlations between positive symptoms were statistically significant for all but the smallest coefficient (range r = 0.12-0.49). Age was negatively related to APS (range OR = 0.53-0.78, all P < .01). Male sex was uniquely related to disorganized communication (OR = 1.46) and a high education-level related negatively to suspiciousness/persecutory ideas (OR = 0.64), perceptual abnormalities/hallucinations (OR = 0.57) and disorganized communication (OR = 0.54). The variance explained by age ranged from R 2 = 0.044 for unusual thought content to R 2 = 0.144 for perceptual abnormalities. CONCLUSION: Our results highlighted the role of age and, thereby, neurodevelopment in psychosis-risk assessment.