Top

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

Published in:

Open Access 01-10-2015 | Original Paper

Childhood trauma and childhood urbanicity in relation to psychotic disorder

Authors: Aleida Frissen, Ritsaert Lieverse, Marjan Drukker, Ruud van Winkel, Philippe Delespaul, GROUP Investigators

Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology | Issue 10/2015

Abstract

Background

Urban upbringing and childhood trauma are both associated with psychotic disorders. However, the association between childhood urbanicity and childhood trauma in psychosis is poorly understood. The urban environment could occasion a background of social adversity against which any effect of childhood trauma increases. Also, any impact of the urban environment on likelihood of exposure to childhood trauma could be stronger in children who later develop psychotic disorder. The aim of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether childhood urbanicity moderates the effect of childhood trauma, in a model predicting psychotic disorder; (2) to investigate whether there is an association between the urban environment and childhood trauma and whether this is moderated by genetic liability for psychotic disorder.

Methods

Patients with a diagnosis of non-affective psychotic disorder (n = 1119) and 589 healthy controls from the Netherlands and Belgium were studied. Childhood trauma was assessed with the Dutch version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short Form. Urban exposure was defined at four levels, considering the population density, using data from Statistics Netherlands and the equivalent database in Belgium.

Results

There was a significant interaction between childhood urbanicity on the one hand and childhood trauma on the other, indicating that trauma was significantly associated with psychotic disorder, with increasing odds ratios for higher levels of childhood urbanicity. In addition, there was weak evidence that childhood urbanicity was associated with childhood trauma in the patient group: higher levels of childhood urbanicity were associated with higher trauma scores.

Conclusion

The urban environment may moderate the risk-increasing effect of childhood trauma for psychotic disorder and childhood urbanicity may be a risk factor for childhood trauma in individuals who later develop psychotic disorder.

Available only for authorised users

Kelly BD, O’Callaghan E, Waddington JL, Feeney L, Browne S, Scully PJ, Clarke M, Quinn JF, McTigue O, Morgan MG, Kinsella A, Larkin C (2010) Schizophrenia and the city: a review of literature and prospective study of psychosis and urbanicity in Ireland. Schizophr Res 116(1):75–89. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2009.10.015 CrossRefPubMed

McGrath J, Scott J (2006) Urban birth and risk of schizophrenia: a worrying example of epidemiology where the data are stronger than the hypotheses. Epidemiologia e psichiatria sociale 15(4):243–246PubMed

Krabbendam L, van Os J (2005) Schizophrenia and urbanicity: a major environmental influence—conditional on genetic risk. Schizophr Bull 31(4):795–799. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbi060 CrossRefPubMed

Pedersen CB, Mortensen PB (2001) Evidence of a dose-response relationship between urbanicity during upbringing and schizophrenia risk. Arch Gen Psychiatry 58(11):1039–1046CrossRefPubMed

Bebbington PE, Bhugra D, Brugha T, Singleton N, Farrell M, Jenkins R, Lewis G, Meltzer H (2004) Psychosis, victimisation and childhood disadvantage: evidence from the second British National Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity. Br J Psychiatry J Ment Sci 185:220–226. doi:10.1192/bjp.185.3.220 CrossRef

Janssen I, Krabbendam L, Bak M, Hanssen M, Vollebergh W, de Graaf R, van Os J (2004) Childhood abuse as a risk factor for psychotic experiences. Acta Psychiatr Scand 109(1):38–45CrossRefPubMed

Lataster T, van Os J, Drukker M, Henquet C, Feron F, Gunther N, Myin-Germeys I (2006) Childhood victimisation and developmental expression of non-clinical delusional ideation and hallucinatory experiences: victimisation and non-clinical psychotic experiences. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 41(6):423–428. doi:10.1007/s00127-006-0060-4 CrossRefPubMed

Heins M, Simons C, Lataster T, Pfeifer S, Versmissen D, Lardinois M, Marcelis M, Delespaul P, Krabbendam L, van Os J, Myin-Germeys I (2011) Childhood trauma and psychosis: a case-control and case-sibling comparison across different levels of genetic liability, psychopathology, and type of trauma. Am J Psychiatry 168(12):1286–1294. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.10101531 CrossRefPubMed

Varese F, Smeets F, Drukker M, Lieverse R, Lataster T, Viechtbauer W, Read J, van Os J, Bentall RP (2012) Childhood adversities increase the risk of psychosis: a meta-analysis of patient-control, prospective- and cross-sectional cohort studies. Schizophr Bull 38(4):661–671. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbs050 PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMed

10.

Coulton CJ, Korbin JE, Su M (1999) Neighborhoods and child maltreatment: a multi-level study. Child Abuse Negl 23(11):1019–1040CrossRefPubMed

11.

Zolotor AJ, Runyan DK (2006) Social capital, family violence, and neglect. Pediatrics 117(6):e1124–e1131. doi:10.1542/peds.2005-1913 CrossRefPubMed

12.

Kohler CG, Walker JB, Martin EA, Healey KM, Moberg PJ (2010) Facial emotion perception in schizophrenia: a meta-analytic review. Schizophr Bull 36(5):1009–1019. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbn192 PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMed

13.

Kohler CG, Richard JA, Brensinger CM, Borgmann-Winter KE, Conroy CG, Moberg PJ, Gur RC, Gur RE, Calkins ME (2014) Facial emotion perception differs in young persons at genetic and clinical high-risk for psychosis. Psychiatry Res. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2014.01.023

14.

Lavoie MA, Plana I, Bedard Lacroix J, Godmaire-Duhaime F, Jackson PL, Achim AM (2013) Social cognition in first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia: a meta-analysis. Psychiatry Res 209(2):129–135. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2012.11.037 CrossRefPubMed

15.

Bediou B, Asri F, Brunelin J, Krolak-Salmon P, D’Amato T, Saoud M, Tazi I (2007) Emotion recognition and genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia. Br J Psychiatry J Ment Sci 191:126–130. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.106.028829 CrossRef

16.

Genetic Risk and Outcome in Psychosis (GROUP) investigators (2011) Evidence that familial liability for psychosis is expressed as differential sensitivity to cannabis: an analysis of patient-sibling and sibling-control pairs. Arch Gen Psychiatry 68(2):138–147. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.132 CrossRef

17.

Maxwell ME (1992) Genetics initiative: family interview for genetic studies (FIGS). National Institute of Mental Health

18.

APA (2000) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. American Psychiatric Association, Washington

19.

Andreasen NC, Flaum M, Arndt S (1992) The comprehensive assessment of symptoms and history (CASH). An instrument for assessing diagnosis and psychopathology. Arch Gen Psychiatry 49(8):615–623CrossRefPubMed

20.

Wing JK, Babor T, Brugha T, Burke J, Cooper JE, Giel R, Jablenski A, Regier D, Sartorius N (1990) SCAN. Schedules for clinical assessment in neuropsychiatry. Arch Gen Psychiatry 47(6):589–593CrossRefPubMed

21.

Bernstein DP, Ahluvalia T, Pogge D, Handelsman L (1997) Validity of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire in an adolescent psychiatric population. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 36(3):340–348. doi:10.1097/00004583-199703000-00012 CrossRefPubMed

22.

Statistics Netherlands (1993) Bevolking der Gemeenten van Nederland. Central Bureau of Statistics publications, The Hague

23.

Venkatasubramanian G, Jayakumar PN, Keshavan MS, Gangadhar BN (2011) Schneiderian first rank symptoms and inferior parietal lobule cortical thickness in antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 35(1):40–46. doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2010.07.023 CrossRefPubMed

24.

Wechsler D (1997) WAIS-III: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 3rd edn, Administration and Scoring Manual

25.

Blyler CR, Gold JM, Iannone VN, Buchanan RW (2000) Short form of the WAIS-III for use with patients with schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 46(2–3):209–215CrossRefPubMed

26.

StataCorp (2007) Stata Statistical Software. Release 10.0 edn. Stata Corporation, College Station, TX

27.

Clayton D HM (1993) Statistical Models in Epidemiology

28.

Kuepper R, van Os J, Lieb R, Wittchen HU, Henquet C (2011) Do cannabis and urbanicity co-participate in causing psychosis? Evidence from a 10-year follow-up cohort study. Psychol Med 41(10):2121–2129. doi:10.1017/s0033291711000511 CrossRefPubMed

29.

Cougnard A, Marcelis M, Myin-Germeys I, De Graaf R, Vollebergh W, Krabbendam L, Lieb R, Wittchen HU, Henquet C, Spauwen J, Van Os J (2007) Does normal developmental expression of psychosis combine with environmental risk to cause persistence of psychosis? A psychosis proneness-persistence model. Psychol Med 37(4):513–527. doi:10.1017/S0033291706009731 CrossRefPubMed

30.

Nemeroff CB (2004) Neurobiological consequences of childhood trauma. J Clin Psychiatry 65(Suppl 1):18–28PubMed

31.

Heim C, Newport DJ, Heit S, Graham YP, Wilcox M, Bonsall R, Miller AH, Nemeroff CB (2000) Pituitary-adrenal and autonomic responses to stress in women after sexual and physical abuse in childhood. J Am Med Assoc 284(5):592–597CrossRef

32.

Walker EF, Diforio D (1997) Schizophrenia: a neural diathesis-stress model. Psychol Rev 104(4):667–685CrossRefPubMed

33.

van Os J, Driessen G, Gunther N, Delespaul P (2000) Neighbourhood variation in incidence of schizophrenia. Evidence for person-environment interaction. Br J Psychiatry J Ment Sci 176:243–248CrossRef

34.

Selten JP, Cantor-Graae E (2007) Hypothesis: social defeat is a risk factor for schizophrenia? Br J Psychiatry 191(Suppl 51):s9–s12. doi:10.1192/bjp.191.51.s9 CrossRef

35.

Drake B, Pandey S (1996) Understanding the relationship between neighborhood poverty and specific types of child maltreatment. Child Abuse Negl 20(11):1003–1018CrossRefPubMed

36.

Coulton CJ, Korbin JE, Su M, Chow J (1995) Community level factors and child maltreatment rates. Child Dev 66(5):1262–1276CrossRefPubMed

37.

Guterman NB, Lee SJ, Taylor CA, Rathouz PJ (2009) Parental perceptions of neighborhood processes, stress, personal control, and risk for physical child abuse and neglect. Child Abuse Negl 33(12):897–906. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.09.008 CrossRefPubMed

38.

Molnar BE, Buka SL, Brennan RT, Holton JK, Earls F (2003) A multilevel study of neighborhoods and parent-to-child physical aggression: results from the project on human development in Chicago neighborhoods. Child Maltreatment 8(2):84–97CrossRefPubMed

39.

Ceballo R, McLoyd VC (2002) Social support and parenting in poor, dangerous neighborhoods. Child Dev 73(4):1310–1321CrossRefPubMed

40.

March D, Hatch SL, Morgan C, Kirkbride JB, Bresnahan M, Fearon P, Susser E (2008) Psychosis and place. Epidemiol Rev 30:84–100. doi:10.1093/epirev/mxn006 CrossRefPubMed

41.

Colvert E, Rutter M, Kreppner J, Beckett C, Castle J, Groothues C, Hawkins A, Stevens S, Sonuga-Barke EJ (2008) Do theory of mind and executive function deficits underlie the adverse outcomes associated with profound early deprivation?: findings from the English and Romanian adoptees study. J Abnorm Child Psychol 36(7):1057–1068. doi:10.1007/s10802-008-9232-x CrossRefPubMed

42.

Goodman LA, Thompson KM, Weinfurt K, Corl S, Acker P, Mueser KT, Rosenberg SD (1999) Reliability of reports of violent victimization and posttraumatic stress disorder among men and women with serious mental illness. J Trauma Stress 12(4):587–599. doi:10.1023/A:1024708916143 CrossRefPubMed

43.

Fisher HL, Craig TK, Fearon P, Morgan K, Dazzan P, Lappin J, Hutchinson G, Doody GA, Jones PB, McGuffin P, Murray RM, Leff J, Morgan C (2011) Reliability and comparability of psychosis patients’ retrospective reports of childhood abuse. Schizophr Bull 37(3):546–553. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbp103 PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMed

Title: Childhood trauma and childhood urbanicity in relation to psychotic disorder
Authors: Aleida Frissen
Ritsaert Lieverse
Marjan Drukker
Ruud van Winkel
Philippe Delespaul
GROUP Investigators
Publication date: 01-10-2015
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology / Issue 10/2015
Print ISSN: 0933-7954
Electronic ISSN: 1433-9285
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-015-1049-7

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

Springer Medicine

Childhood trauma and childhood urbanicity in relation to psychotic disorder

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 10/2015

Predicting perceived need for mental health care in a community sample: an application of the self-regulatory model

Customising informed consent procedures for people with schizophrenia in India

Marriage outcome and relationship with urban versus rural context for individuals with psychosis in a population-based study in China

The impact of obstetric mode of delivery on childhood behavior

The aetiology of schizophrenia: what have the Swedish Medical Registers taught us?

Psychological distress and the increased risk of falling into poverty: a longitudinal study of Australian adults