What is it about?
Are you curious about the association between childhood adversity and the risk of psychosis? In this paper, we provided an updated synthesis of evidence from the past four decades, expanded the available data by investigating a broad array of adversity subtypes, and explored sex differences and the age of psychosis onset as relevant factors.
Featured Image
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
Why is it important?
In this paper, we sumarized the evidence from 183 study samples (N=349,265) and found that people with psychosis were almost three times more likely to have experienced childhood adversity, compared to those without psychosis. There were no significant differences between men and women. Patients who had experienced adversity developed psychosis at an earlier age than those who had not.
Perspectives
Childhood adversity is a major public health issue. I am happy to see this work published, even though our focus was specifically on its association with the risk of psychosis. Thank all co-authors for their contribution! Why is it so important to understand childhood adversity? Because a safe and healthy childhood are fundamental to physical, mental, and social development. I’d like to highlight that childhood adversity is not only about past adverse experiences—it may also continue to limit a person’s ability to reach their full potential. This is my personal motivation for studying this topic.
Lan Zhou
University of Groningen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What Do Four Decades of Research Tell Us About the Association Between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis: An Updated and Extended Multi-Level Meta-Analysis, American Journal of Psychiatry, April 2025, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20240456.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
