The Nithsdale Schizophrenia Surveys X: Obstetric Complications, Family History and Abnormal Movements

Abstract

Obstetric histories of 54 schizophrenic patients and 114 siblings were obtained from their mothers and scored using the Obstetric Complications Scale. There were no statistically significant difference in the proportion of schizophrenic patients (35%) and siblings (29%) who had at least one definite obstetric complication. There was no evidence that schizophrenic patients with a history of obstetric complications were less likely to have a first-degree relative with a history of psychiatric illness leading to in-patient care. Schizophrenic patients with a history of obstetric complications were more likely to have drug-induced Parkinsonism. There was a trend for tardive dyskinesia to be more common in those schizophrenic patients with no obstetric complications but a family history of schizophrenia.

Obstetric Complications and Schizophrenia: Historical and Meta-Analytic Review

“…Although some studies clearly attempted to use population-based methods (28,44,45,48), the final samples were selected to varying degrees and were prone to bias. Many studies relied solely on maternal recall as the source of information about the exposure (46,49,52). Subgroup analyses were common but yielded inconsistent results.…”

“…Some studies found a significant overall effect for obstetric complications (44)(45)(46)(47)(48), others did not (49,50). Some studies had no normal comparison group (51)(52)(53), while others included a sibling comparison group (44,47,49,50,54). Different variations of the Lewis-Murray scale were used, but the results were still presented as total scores.…”

“…Subgroup analyses were common but yielded inconsistent results. Obstetric complications were examined in relation to family history (49,51,(55)(56)(57), premorbid adjustment (51), imaging abnormalities (53,58), age at onset of illness (45,55,59,60), gender (45,56,57,59), neurological abnormalities (49,55), ethnicity (61), and season of birth (56), among others. The search for environmental risk factors for schizophrenia had become an example of "circular epidemiology," namely "the tendency to perseverate at one level of evidence, for example, on one type of study design without moving forward" (62).…”

Non-Right-Handedness and Obstetrical Complications in Paranoid Hallucinatory Schizophrenics

“…The association remains controversial due to both methodological weakness in the studies [31] and the failure to confirm the association in two historical cohort studies [37,38] and in one population-based case-control study [39]. Particular attention has been paid to the potential role of maternal recall bias in the case-control studies [37], although the association has also been found when original obstetric case notes have been examined.…”

Subtyping schizophrenia: implications for genetic research

“…[160][161][162] Sporadic cases are more likely to be winter-born 159,163,164 and have more electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities 153 and enlarged ventricles on CT scan or MRI. 152,165,166 Familial cases, on the other hand, have more neurological signs, 164,[167][168][169] poorer sustained attention performance; 170 cortical abnormalities on MRI 171 and reduced temporoparietal resting regional blood flow. 172 By and large, the F/S classification has not been successful in identifying homogeneous phenotype groups for genetic research.…”