School of Psychology, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Department of Psychiatry, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 2024 Sep 1;212(9):460-470. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000001788. Epub 2024 Aug 9.
Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental health disorder that imposes profound economic, societal, and personal burdens. The negative symptoms of schizophrenia ( i.e. , blunted affect, alogia, anhedonia, asociality, and avolition) are highly prevalent and pervasive in the psychotic disorder and pose significant resistance to available treatment options. Traumatic childhood experiences are strongly linked with the risk of developing schizophrenia. Most prior studies have primarily focused on positive symptoms of schizophrenia ( e.g. , hallucinations and delusions), whereas less attention has been given to negative symptoms. The current study investigated the relationship between childhood trauma ( i.e. , physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse and neglect) and negative symptoms in a sample of schizophrenia outpatients and healthy controls ( n = 159 participants, including 99 patients with schizophrenia). The observations from the current study revealed that schizophrenia patients experienced a significantly greater degree of childhood trauma and negative symptoms than the control individuals. The results of the current study also indicated that more severe experiences of total childhood trauma ( i.e. , summation of all trauma types), physical abuse, and emotional neglect may increase the risk of schizophrenia patients reporting negative symptoms. However, childhood sexual and emotional abuse was found to have no impact on the degree of negative symptoms experienced by schizophrenia patients. Implications and limitations of the current study are discussed. In conclusion, we found that the severity of overall childhood trauma, physical abuse, and emotional neglect may play an important role in increasing the likelihood of schizophrenia patients reporting negative symptoms.
精神分裂症是一种使人衰弱的精神健康障碍，给个人、社会和经济带来了沉重负担。精神分裂症的阴性症状（即情感迟钝、言语贫乏、快感缺失、社会性退缩和意志缺乏）在精神病中普遍且严重，对现有治疗选择具有显著的抵抗力。童年创伤经历与精神分裂症的发病风险密切相关。既往大多数研究主要集中在精神分裂症的阳性症状（例如幻觉和妄想）上，而对阴性症状的关注较少。本研究调查了精神分裂症门诊患者和健康对照组（n=159 名参与者，包括 99 名精神分裂症患者）中童年创伤（即身体虐待、性虐待和情感忽视和虐待）与阴性症状之间的关系。本研究的观察结果表明，精神分裂症患者经历的童年创伤和阴性症状程度明显高于对照组。本研究的结果还表明，更严重的童年期总体创伤经历（即所有创伤类型的总和）、身体虐待和情感忽视可能会增加精神分裂症患者报告阴性症状的风险。然而，童年期性虐待和情感虐待对精神分裂症患者经历的阴性症状程度没有影响。本研究讨论了其意义和局限性。总之，我们发现，总体童年创伤、身体虐待和情感忽视的严重程度可能在增加精神分裂症患者报告阴性症状的可能性方面起着重要作用。
