Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-l9twb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T22:56:37.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Perinatal Complications and Clinical Outcome within the Schizophrenia Spectrum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. Parnas
Affiliation:
Psykologisk Institut, Department of Psychiatry, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen
F. Schulsinger
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen
T. W. Teasdale
Affiliation:
Psykologisk Institut, Department of Psychiatry, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen
H. Schulsinger
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
S. A. Mednick
Affiliation:
Psykologisk Institut, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen; and Professor, Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Summary

In a prospective study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers, perinatal complications reported in midwife protocols were analysed for those offspring who, as adults, were diagnosed as schizophrenic, borderline schizophrenic or as not suffering from mental illness. The schizophrenics were found to have had the most complicated births, and the borderlines, the least complicated births. This difference is interpreted in terms of a ‘diathesis-stress' model. It is proposed that birth complications can decompensate borderline individuals towards schizophrenic breakdown.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bleuler, E. (1961/1911) Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias. Translated by Zinkin, J. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1980) Washington: American Psychiatric Association. 3rd edition.Google Scholar
Dunaif, S. L. & Hoch, P. H. (1955) Pseudopsychopathic schizophrenia. In Psychiatry and the Law (eds. Hoch, P. H. and Zubin, J.), pp 169–95. New York: Grune and Stratton.Google Scholar
Endicott, J. & Spitzer, R. (1972) Current and past psychopathology scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 678–87.Google Scholar
Hoch, P. H. & Polatin, P. (1949) Pseudoneurotic forms of schizophrenia. Psychiatric Quarterly, 23, 248–76.Google Scholar
Hoch, P. H., Cattell, J. P., Strahl, M. O. & Pennes, H. H. (1962) The course and outcome of pseudoneurotic schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 106–15.Google Scholar
Kety, S. S., Rosenthal, D., Wender, P. H., Schulsinger, F. & Jacobsen, B. (1978) The biologic and adoptive families of adopted individuals who later became schizophrenic: Prevalence of mental illness and other characteristics. In The Nature of Schizophrenia (eds. Wynne, L. C., Cromwell, R. L. and Mathysse, S.), pp 2537. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
McNeil, T. F. & Kaij, L. (1978) Obstetric factors in the development of schizophrenia: Complications in the birth of preschizophrenics and in reproduction by schizophrenic parents. In The Nature of Schizophrenia (eds. Wynne, L. C., Cromwell, R. L. and Mathysse, S.), pp 401–29. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A. (1970) Breakdown in individuals at high risk for schizophrenia: possible predispositional perinatal factors. Mental Hygiene, 54, 5063.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A. & Schulsinger, F. (1965) A longitudinal study of children with a high risk for schizophrenia: A preliminary report. In Methods and Goals in Human Behavior Genetics (ed. Vandenberg, S.), pp 255–96. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A., Schulsinger, F., Teasdale, T. W., Schulsinger, H., Venables, P. H. & Rock, D. R. (1978) Schizophrenia in high risk children: Sex differences in predisposing factors. In Cognitive Defects in the Development of Mental Illness (ed. Serban, G.), pp 169–97. New York: Brunner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Mirdal, G. K. M., Mednick, S. A., Schulsinger, F. & Fuchs, F. (1974) Perinatal complications in children of schizophrenic mothers. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 50, 553–68.Google ScholarPubMed
Parnas, J., Schulsinger, F., Schulsinger, H., Mednick, S. A. & Teasdale, T. W. Behavioural precursors of schizophrenia spectrum. Accepted for publication. Archives of General Psychiatry. Google Scholar
Pollack, M., Levenstein, S. & Klein, D. F. (1968) A three-year posthospital follow-up of adolescent and adult schizophrenics. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 38, 94109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schulsinger, H. (1976) A ten-year follow-up of children of schizophrenic mothers: Clinical assessment. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 53, 371–86.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1978) Genetics. In Schizophrenia Towards a New Synthesis (ed. Wing, J. K.), pp 5388. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R. L. & Endicott, J. (1979) Justification for separating schizotypal and borderline personality disorders. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 5, 95104.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974) The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Syndromes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1967) Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries and Causes of Death. Geneva. Vol. 1. Eighth Revision.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.