The Relationship of Environmental Temperature to the Incidence and Outcome of Schizophrenia

Abstract

This paper presents new analyses of data from two multicentre studies carried out by the WHO. The morbid risk of developing schizophrenia, as broadly defined by the Determinants of Outcome Study, was positively related to the mean daily range of temperature. The outcome of schizophrenia, as determined by the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia, was found to be positively related to mean environmental temperature. Further studies are needed to examine the relationship of geographical and climatic variables to schizophrenia in order to complement what is already known about the role of sociocultural factors.

Seasonality of hospital admissions for mental disorders in Hanoi, Vietnam

“…In spite of the prime importance attached to them, psychological studies on the impact of thermal environment are still at their infancy (18, 38). According to Hensel (1981), thermo-reception resulting in qualities such as warmth is qualitative, originating as it does from sensory experience, and it therefore cannot be based on physics or physiology (37).…”

The Role of Environmental Influences on Schizophrenia Admissions in Israel

“…The importance of these variables is well established for affective disorders (Myers & Davies, 1978;Mawson & Smith, 1981;Parker & Walter, 1982;Silverstone et al, 1995;Morken et al, 2002;Hakkarainen et al, 2003;Volpe & del Porte, 2006;Lee et al, 2007;Boker et al, 2008). Their role in schizophrenia is less extensively characterized, although a correlation between monthly admission rates and mean maximal monthly temperature has been found by some investigators (Gupta & Murray, 1992;Shiloh et al, 2005).…”

Is greater temperature change within a day associated with increased emergency admissions for schizophrenia?

“…Only a few studies examined the relationship between DTR and schizophrenia admissions (Gupta and Murray, 1992;Sung et al, 2011), which limited us to directly compare the results with others. Early in 1992, Gupta and Murray reported a positive correlation between mean daily range of temperature and emergency admissions for schizophrenia.…”

“…However, to the best of our knowledge, there have been only two studies on DTR in relation to schizophrenia (Gupta and Murray, 1992;Sung et al, 2011). A recent study in Taiwan found that an increasing DTR may contribute to the emergency admission for schizophrenia, but the lagged effects of within-day variation in temperature have not been evaluated in detail.…”

“…Several existing studies have documented the relationship between ambient temperature and the occurrence of schizophrenia symptoms (Gupta and Murray, 1992;Shiloh et al, 2005;Sung et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2014), and many of these studies revealed that high temperature was significantly associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia (Gupta and Murray, 1992;Shiloh et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2014). Although mean temperature has been used to quantify the risk of schizophrenia, it may be not enough to reflect the complicated variations of climate (Qu et al, 2014).…”