Schizophrenic with childhood trauma: characterization of a Tunisian sample

Abstract

Introduction Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental process affecting approximately 1% of the population. Multiple studies have found that Childhood trauma is an important risk factor in the emergence and clinical course of schizophrenia. Objectives The purpose of this study was to assess the characteristics of schizophrenic inpatients with childhood trauma among a tunisian sample. Methods Stabilized inpatients with schizophrenia at the Psychiatry C department at University Hospital in Sfax were involved in our study. Sociodemographic and clinical data of patients were collected from medical records. We used Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) to evaluate the occurrence of childhood maltreatment. Results We recruited 33 patients, all men with a mean age of 35 years and 4 months (SD=9.44 years). They were married in 6.1% and 24.2% of patients had regular work. The mean age of onset of the disorder was 24.42(3.25).The level of poor psychotropic medication adherence was 72.7%. According to CTQ-SF, 78.8% of patients had experienced child trauma with a mean score of 35.67 (SD =8.61). A rate of 39.4% reported having experienced one child trauma, while 60.6% reported having experienced more than one. We found high rates of emotional neglect (87.8%) while emotional and physical abuse during childhood were experienced by 39.4%, and 6% respectively and physical neglect were found in 30.3% of cases. Patients with more than one childhood trauma were found to have an earlier onset of psychosis (p=0.004) The occurrence of childhood trauma was not associated with the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents or the clinical features of the disease. Conclusions The results point toward childhood emotional neglect being of specific importance to schizophrenia, which may be an area for future prevention and clinical attention. Disclosure of Interest None Declared