The British Journal of Psychiatry (2005) 187: s104-s107
© 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Problems with early and very early intervention in psychosis*
RICHARD WARNER, MB, DPM
Mental Health Center of Boulder County and University of Colorado; Mental
Health Center of Boulder County, 1333 Iris Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80304,
USA. Tel: +01 303 443 8500; fax: +01 303 449 6029
Correspondence:
e-mail:
drdickwarner{at}aol.com
Declaration of interest. None.
* Paper presented at the Third International Early Psychosis Conference,
Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2002. 

ABSTRACT
Earlyintervention can refer to two different approaches
intervention when the psychosis is already evident
and intervention
before a psychosis is fully apparent. Each
carries a distinctly different set
of risks. The hoped-for
benefits of early intervention in a fully evident
psychosis
are based on research that reveals an association between
intervention
early in the illness and good outcome.Those suffering from a
psychosis of recent onset, however, are more likely to experience
a
spontaneous remission of illness, and this may readily explain
the observed
association. Early intervention in such cases
of good-prognosis psychosis may
lead to unnecessary and, sometimes,
protracted treatment for those who would
do well with no treatment.
Intervention in the supposed prodromal phase of
psychosis presents
more serious hazards. The screening instruments currently
available
are inadequate for the accurate prediction of psychosis, and
the
risks of negative effects for the large numbers of people
who screen
false-positive are considerable. These risks include
unnecessary fear of
illness, restriction of life goals, use
of medication and their
side-effects.

INTRODUCTION
Early intervention in psychosis has generated interest and optimism.
Health
service policy in the UK, Australia, Italy, Canada,
and elsewhere has given
early intervention a high priority.
The enthusiasm, however, is not backed by
satisfactory research
evidence.
Early intervention refers to intervention both before and
after the onset of psychosis. The problems, risks and potential benefits are
quite different for each of these approaches. I will argue that the
expectation of special benefits from early intervention after the onset of
illness is premised on weak evidence, and that the approach presents a risk of
unnecessary treatment to those who would otherwise experience a brief or mild
psychotic disorder. Intervention before psychosis is fully evident is hampered
by the lack of adequate screening instruments and interventions and by the
danger of negative consequences to those who screen false-positive.

EARLY INTERVENTION AFTER ONSET OF PSYCHOSIS
The belief that early intervention in psychosis leads to better
outcome is
based on a misinterpretation of the available data.
These data show that the
duration of untreated psychosis (DUP)
is associated with increased risk of
relapse (
Crow et al,
1986),
psychosocial decline
(
Jones et al, 1993),
prolonged morbidity
(
Wyatt et al,
1997), increased costs
(
Moscarelli et al,
1991),
worse course and outcome
(
Helgason, 1990;
Haas et al, 1998),
and increased duration of the acute episode
(
Loebel et al, 1992;
McGorry et al, 1996).
It is unlikely, however, that
this association is a direct effect of prolonged
psychosis.
First episodes of schizophrenia-like conditions progress to
remission of psychotic symptoms in 2550% of cases in
the developed
world (
World Health Organization,
1979;
Ciompi, 1980;
Warner, 2004). Samples of
patients with a long duration
of illness will exclude such good-prognosis
cases, but samples
with a short duration of psychosis will include patients
who
recover rapidly. Early detection samples, therefore, are biased
to include
more good-prognosis cases and will have better overall
outcome.
It seems likely that this selection bias explains the association between
DUP and poor outcome since the association only holds true for cases of brief
duration. Drake et al
(2000) note that, in their
study, nearly all the association between DUP and outcome is for cases with a
duration of 6 months or less and, as shown in
Table 1, virtually all the
studies that demonstrate an association of DUP with outcome include cases of
recent onset, such as schizophreniform disorder. The two exceptions
(Waddington et al,
1995; Scully et al,
1997) are studies of the same cohort of long-stay patients
admitted to an Irish asylum before the advent of antipsychotic medication in
the mid 1950s. The longer the patients were institutionalised prior to the
introduction of drug treatment, the worse the outcome. These two studies,
then, demonstrate the effect of long-term institutional confinement rather
than of untreated psychosis. All the studies that restrict the sample to
DSMIV schizophrenia (with a 6-month duration criterion;
American Psychiatric Association,
1994) fail to show an association between DUP and outcome.
Wyatt et al (1997)
suggest that untreated psychosis itself may be toxic to brain function. This
possibility is rendered unlikely, however, by recent studies that demonstrate
a lack of association between DUP and loss of cortical mass, ventricular
enlargement or decrements in cognitive functioning
(Fannon et al, 2000; Hoff et al, 2000;
Norman et al, 2001).
Only one study finds DUP to be related to cognitive decline
(Joyce et al,
2001).
Claims for the benefits of early intervention, it emerges, go back more
than 200 years. Throughout the nineteenth century, writes Scull
(1979), it was an
article of faith among those who dealt with lunatics that the deranged were
more easily restored in the early stages of the disorder (p. 111). One
private madhouse proprietor, for example, reported, in 1828, that, of
sixty-nine cases admitted within three months of the first attack, sixty were
cured; of seventy cases admitted five months after the onset of the attack,
however, only twelve were cured
(Parry-Jones, 1972, p. 203).
The British Metropolitan Commissioners of Lunacy cited tables
exhibiting the large proportion of cures effected in cases where
patients are admitted within three months of their attacks
(Scull, 1979, p. 112), and the
Westminster Review endorsed the very great probability of cure
in the early stages of insanity
(Scull, 1979, p. 112). The
result of this enthusiasm was the passage of the two Lunatics Acts of 1845
which led to the construction of a national network of, sometimes massive,
county asylums. We look back, now, with a sense of superiority on the
self-promotion of the early asylum proprietors in citing these recovery
figures and on the lack of scientific rigour of the politicians in accepting
them. We should note, however, that the data currently being offered in
support of early intervention suffer from the same weakness as the early
asylum tables.
There is danger in overenthusiastic early intervention in those fairly
frequent cases of psychosis which progress to early remission without drug
treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) international outcome study
demonstrated that 15% of those presenting with a schizophrenia-like illness in
developed world centres recovered completely within 4 months and stayed well
for 2 years (World Health Organization,
1979). The Soteria projects in California
(Mosher, 1995) and in Berne
(Ciompi et al, 1992) and Lehtinens multicentre study in Finland
(Lehtinen et al,
2000) demonstrated that medication use is not essential for good
outcome in the first episode of schizophrenia-like illness. Treating such
patients with medication at the earliest appearance of symptoms, without
thought for the expected outcome, may lock the person experiencing a brief
psychosis into a long-term career as a psychiatric patient.
There is also a risk that attempts to increase community recognition of
mild and early psychosis may result in people being referred for psychiatric
care who would not otherwise have been treated and who may not need it. A
comparison of general population incidence surveys of schizophrenia and
treatmentcontact-based studies suggests that many, perhaps most, people
with a psychotic disorder never receive treatment. The mean annual
age-corrected incidence of schizophrenia based on an analysis of available
servicecontact incidence studies is 0.24 per 1000 population with a
range of 0.070.52 per 1000 (Warner
& de Girolamo, 1995). The mean incidence of schizophrenia in
the five US cities of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) community survey,
however, is eight times greater, at 2.0 per 1000 (range, 1.07.1 per
1000) (Tien & Eaton,
1992). Even after applying a correction for false-positive and
false-negative diagnoses in the survey, based on psychiatrist interviews
conducted on a portion of the Baltimore sample
(Anthony et al, 1985),
the mean incidence of schizophrenia is still six times greater in the ECA
study, at 1.5 per 1000. Similarly, the age-corrected incidence of
schizophrenia in the community survey conducted in Lundby, Sweden, by Hagnell
et al (1990) is
substantially higher, at 3.8 per 1000, than the mean age-corrected incidence
in other Scandinavian studies 0.16 per 1000, range 0.070.24 per
1000 (Warner & de Girolamo,
1995). It is by no means clear that broadening the net of
detection and treatment will bring benefits to the milder cases of psychosis
that currently go unrecognised. This is especially so in the light of the
concern that treatment of good-prognosis psychosis with antipsychotic
medication may worsen the course of the condition due to the risk of symptom
rebound on drug withdrawal (Warner,
2004).

INTERVENTION BEFORE ONSET OF PSYCHOSIS
McGorry and colleagues in the Personal Assistance and Crisis
Evaluation
(PACE) clinic report that the most recent version
of their screening
instrument is capable of 80% accuracy in
predicting which psychiatric clinic
patients will develop schizophrenia
(
Yung
et al, 2002). For a number of reasons this instrument,
like others (
Warner, 2002), is
unlikely to be successful in
identifying those at imminent risk of psychosis
in routine
use. In the first place, the 80% positive predictive value (PPV)
for the PACE instrument was achieved by means of a
post hoc selection
of scale items. For statistical reasons, a measure
defined in this way will
usually be less successful when applied
to a new sample. But, even with this
level of accuracy, it
will be less predictive in broader populations.
In the PACE sample, 35% developed a psychosis within 1 year a much
higher rate of transition than would be encountered in most adolescent
psychiatric clinics. Bayes probability theorem
(Everitt, 1999) tells us that
the predictive capacity of a screening instrument is determined by three
elements: (a) its sensitivity (in the PACE trial, 0.58); (b) its specificity
(0.93); and (c) the base rate of the illness (in the PACE sample, 35%)
(Yung et al, 2002).
Applying Bayes theorem, we find that if used to screen a general
population sample with a base rate of 1%, the PACE measure would be correct
only 7% of the time clearly not a viable basis for intervention. If it
were applied to a clinical population where the risk of developing psychosis
in a year was, say, 5%, the instrument would be correct only 30% of the time.
A false-positive rate of 70% seems unrealistic for intervening with either
medication or cognitive therapy. This problem of the PPV being influenced by
the base rate of illness in the tested population may explain why the PACE
instrument only achieved a 9% accuracy when used in another Australian clinic
(Carr et al,
2000).
There are other problems with the PACE screening method. The PACE measure,
which selects those with quasipsychotic symptoms, transient psychotic symptoms
or decline in functioning, is selecting people who are already on the brink of
psychosis. In one study, an extraordinary 40% of PACE participants developed a
psychosis within 6 months, many within the first month
(Yung et al, 1998). If the sample subjected to preventive intervention is so highly selected that
many are within weeks of frank psychosis, how representative is it of the
usual clinical population or the whole at-risk group? The possibility of
having a significant impact on the occurrence of illness in the general
population becomes diminishingly small the more select the cohort being
screened.
McGorry and colleagues speculate that a variety of interventions may be
effective in preventing the onset of schizophrenia in high-risk cases
(McGorry & Jackson, 1999).
The suggested approaches include antipsychotic medication, social skills
training, problem-solving techniques, family intervention, lifestyle
restructure, and training in coping skills. Given the expected number
of false-positives, the potential for harm is significant. Should we prescribe
antipsychotic medication for someone with no positive symptoms? How much harm
will be done to people who will never develop the illness to tell them they
are at-risk for schizophrenia, need treatment and must adjust their life
goals? (Goode, 1999).
In a pre-illness treatment study conducted by PACE
(McGorry et al,
2002), 31 participants were assigned to preventive treatment with
low-dose risperidone and cognitivebehavioural therapy, and 28 were
assigned to supportive psychotherapy. Only 3 out of 31 in the preventive
treatment group developed psychosis after 6 months compared with 10 out of the
28 in the control group. Thus, the onset of psychosis may have been delayed in
about 7 of the experimental group. We have to set this positive outcome
against some negative aspects: (a) 3 patients took risperidone without
benefit; and (b) 21 patients were told they were at-risk for schizophrenia,
when they were not, and took risperidone unnecessarily. How does one decide,
moreover, how long the 28 symptom-free patients taking risperidone should
continue on medication? For three-quarters of the group the medication is
unnecessary, but one does not know which those are.
Prevention specialists ask a series of questions to determine if a
screening programme will do more harm than good
(Jablensky, 2000). Does the
burden of disease warrant screening? Is there an effective preventive
intervention? Is there a good screening test? Will the programme reach those
who would benefit? Can the healthcare system handle the screening? Will the
screen-positive individuals comply with the proposed intervention? In the case
of schizophrenia, the answer to the first question is a resounding
Yes, but to the remainder the answers are No or,
at best, Doubtfully. Looked at in this light, it does not appear
likely that pre-illness screening for schizophrenia is likely to be
successful.

CONCLUSION
Intervention before the onset of psychosis appears hazardous,
and early
intervention after the illness is evident is unlikely
to yield the hoped-for
benefits.

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