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The British Journal of Psychiatry (2002) 181: 387-392
© 2002 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

Adult psychosis, common childhood infections and neurological soft signs in a national birth cohort

STUART J. LEASK, MRCPsych

Department of Psychiatry and Community Mental Health, University of Nottingham

D. JOHN DONE, PhD

Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire

TIMOTHY J. CROW, FRCPsych

SANE Research Centre, Warneford Hospital, Oxford

Correspondence: Dr S. J. Leask, University of Nottingham Department of Psychiatry, Duncan Macmillan House, Porchester Road, Nottingham NG3 6AA, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 115 969 1300, extension 40784; fax: +44 (0) 115 955 5352; e-mail: stuart.leask{at}nottingham.ac.uk

Declaration of interest Educational grants from SANE, the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation and Lilly Industries.

Background Neurological soft signs preceding adult-onset schizophrenia suggest a neurodevelopmental origin and could reflect physical illness in childhood.

Aims To investigate possible associations of adult-onset psychosis with neurological soft signs and common infectious illnesses in childhood.

Method Using data from the UK National Child Development Study, a longitudinal general population sample, odds ratios were calculated for clinical diagnoses of common childhood viral illnesses and later adult psychotic illness, childhood epilepsy and a range of neurological soft signs.

Results The number of illnesses per individual did not relate either to the number of soft signs, or to any particular adult outcome. Schizophrenia, affective psychosis and epilepsy were not associated with common childhood illness but were associated with neurological soft signs and an increased, but small, frequency of previous meningitis and tuberculosis.

Conclusions Overall the data support the notion of neurological soft signs as markers of disordered neurodevelopment in schizophrenia (but the early neurological abnormalities are not caused by infectiousillness) and an association between meningitis or tuberculosis in childhood and a small proportion of cases of epilepsy, affective psychosis and schizophrenia.


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