Prospective identification of clinically relevant risk factors influencing illness course in childhood- and adolescent-onset psychotic disorders

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  • March 21, 2019
Creator
  • Judge, Abigail M.
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Abstract
  • Background: Psychotic disorders with an onset in childhood and adolescence are associated with a more severe illness presentation and malignant course than those with an onset in adulthood. Despite this, their longitudinal course has been studied only to a limited extent. Accordingly, the current study prospectively evaluated the predictive effects of clinically relevant factors on illness course. Methods: Hierarchical linear modeling and multiple regressions were utilized to evaluate the predictive effects of risk factors on level of psychiatric symptoms at 2-5 year follow-up among children and adolescents with well characterized psychotic disorders. Results: Psychotic and general symptoms decreased significantly over time but none of the examined covariates explained significant variance in the observed changes. Supplementary analyses evaluated the effects of two design characteristics (i.e., study effect and rater bias) on the observed changes and found significant rater effects with respect to measures of select psychotic symptoms. Discussion: General psychiatric symptoms decreased during the follow-up period with a significant interaction to characterize this change. Observed changes in psychotic symptoms appear to be artifacts of rater bias. Clinical and methodological implications are discussed.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Penn, David L.
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 11, 2010

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