Parental loss before the age of 16 years: a comparative study of patients with personality disorder and patients with schizophrenia in a high secure hospital's population.

There is a considerable body of literature supporting an association between separation from parent in childhood and later personality disorder. This study compares a 10-year cohort of high secure hospital patients who had either a personality disorder or schizophrenia, but with no other significant psychiatric comorbidity. The information source was the Special Hospitals Case Register. The most important finding was a statistically significant difference in the rates of child-parent separation between the two groups. In the personality disorder group, 119/147 (81%) of the patients had been separated from one or both parents before the age of 16 compared to 178/289 (62%) in the schizophrenia group.