BERLIN – Teens who reported psychotic symptoms – especially hallucinations – on a baseline mental health screening were twice as likely to develop persistent psychiatric symptoms over the next year as were those without such experiences.
Hallucinations in particular predicted a persistent course, nearly tripling the risk (odds ratio, 2.74), Saliha El-Bouhaddani said at the meeting of the World Psychiatric Association.
“This is quite informative and quite clinically relevant,” said Ms. El-Bouhaddani, a doctoral student in psychology at the Parnassia Group, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Because mental health symptoms in young people may be self-limiting, it’s not easy to identify which teens are at high risk for developing persistent problems that can predispose them to a full-blown mental disorder. “But we can see here that psychotic experiences may be very useful in detecting which adolescents may have persistency of symptoms. I believe that screening tools for teenagers should involve questions about psychotic symptoms, because the answer may help us discriminate who will have a self-limiting course and who will have a persistent course.”
Ms. El-Bouhaddani described MasterMind, a longitudinal cohort study of adolescents drawn from the general population. Each teen completed self-report questionnaires on psychotic experiences and psychosocial problems at two time points over a 2-year period. The study was divided into two phases: a 1-year observational period, followed by an intervention for those at risk, and then a 1-year treatment and follow-up period. She reported only the results of the observational phase.
The study enrolled 1,827 young people, who completed four questionnaires: the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire, and questionnaires about psychotic experiences, trauma, and self-esteem. One year later, 1,521 of the participants returned and completed the same surveys.
Ms. El-Bouhaddani constructed four potential pathways from baseline to follow-up: no psychiatric symptoms, remitting symptoms (baseline psychosocial symptoms that remitted by 1 year), incident symptoms (symptoms that appeared only at 1 year), and persistent symptoms (symptoms at both baseline and 1 year). Her goal was to identify any baseline characteristics that might predict a persistent course.
At the 1-year point, the cohort was a mean of 13.5 years old. Most subjects (1,134) had no symptoms at either time point. Incident symptoms were present in 151, remitting symptoms in 181, and persistent symptoms in 46.
Several baseline characteristics significantly separated the group with remitting symptoms from all other groups: They were significantly more likely to have a low education level (61%), to have divorced parents (38%), to report frequent household moves (22%), to have repeated a grade (31%), to report low self-esteem (15%), and to have somatic symptoms (3%). Teens with persistent symptoms also reported more somatic symptoms (3%), but they were significantly more likely than any of the other groups to report having had at least one traumatic event (45%).
At follow-up, psychotic incidents were significantly more common in the remitting and persistent groups (40% and 62%, respectively) than in the nonsymptomatic and incident groups (10% and 11%).
Ms. El-Bouhaddani then broke psychotic experiences down into hallucinations and delusions, and examined their relationships to symptom course. Hallucinations were significantly more common than delusions among those with a persistent course (58% vs. 42%).
She conducted a logistic regression analysis, which determined that any psychotic experience nearly doubled the risk of a persistent course of psychiatric symptoms (OR, 1.92). Hallucinations nearly tripled the risk (OR, 2.74), as did traumatic experiences (OR, 3.0). Delusions increased the risk by close to 60% (OR, 1.59).
The SDQ does not contain questions about psychotic experiences or trauma – the two most powerful predictors of persistent symptoms. It’s time to change this, Ms. El-Bouhaddani said.
“From these results it seems as though we should be asking adolescents about psychotic experiences and trauma. Perhaps it’s time for a new version of the SDQ.”
She had no relevant financial disclosures.
msullivan@frontlinemedcom.comw
On Twitter @alz_gal
SOURCE: El-Bouhaddani S et al. WPA 2017 Abstract S-023 002.