MedWire News: Children who experience physical abuse and domestic violence are more likely to suffer from psychotic symptoms in adolescence than other children, study results show.

However, lead researcher Dr Mary Cannon, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, and team stress that not all individuals who experience very traumatic events in childhood go on to develop a psychotic disorder.

They explain that the development of psychotic disorders “is a dynamic process and should be considered in terms of a pathway over a life course rather than in terms of a certain set of risk factors at a point in time”.

The researchers interviewed 211 young people, aged between 12 and 15 years, who had not previously had contact with the mental health services.

The participants were asked about early traumatic events during childhood, including physical and sexual abuse, exposure to domestic violence and bullying, and whether they had ever experienced psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions.

Overall, 14 (6.6%) of the participants reported experiencing at least one psychotic symptom.

The team found that adolescents who did report psychotic symptoms were six times more likely to have experienced childhood physical abuse and 10 times more likely to have witnessed domestic violence as a child than those who did not report such symptoms.

Adolescents who reported psychotic symptoms were also four times more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse but, given the low numbers of those who reported sexual abuse, this finding was not “statistically significant”, say the researchers.

The team also found that adolescents with psychotic symptoms were 10 times more likely to have been perpetrators, rather than victims, of bullying than adolescents who did not report such symptoms.

The results remained true after accounting for a family history of psychiatric illness.

Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Cannon and co-workers conclude: “This paper adds to the evidence that traumatic childhood events may be part of a cascade that leads to the development of psychotic symptoms and may ultimately contribute to the onset of psychotic illness.”