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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 

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