Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2017 Dec;11(6):453-460.
doi: 10.1111/eip.12412. Epub 2017 Apr 27.

Age at onset and the outcomes of schizophrenia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Johanna Immonen  1   2 , Erika Jääskeläinen  1   2   3 , Hanna Korpela  1   2 , Jouko Miettunen  1   2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Age at onset and the outcomes of schizophrenia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Johanna Immonen et al. Early Interv Psychiatry. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of age at onset on the long-term clinical, social and global outcomes of schizophrenia through a systematic review and a meta-analysis. Original studies were searched from Web of Science, PsycINFO, Pubmed and Scopus, as well as manually. Naturalistic studies with at least a 2-year follow-up were included. Of the 3509 search results, 81 articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis was performed in Stata as a random-effect analysis with correlation coefficients between age at onset and the outcomes (categorized into remission, relapse, hospitalization, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, total symptoms, general clinical outcome, employment, social/occupational functioning and global outcome). There was a statistically significant (P < .05) correlation between younger age at onset and more hospitalizations (number of studies, n = 9; correlation, r = 0.17; 95% confidence interval, CI 0.09-0.25), more negative symptoms (n = 7; r = 0.14; 95% CI 0.01-0.27), more relapses (n = 3; r = 0.11; 95% CI 0.02-0.20), poorer social/occupational functioning (n = 12; r = 0.15; 95% CI 0.05-0.25) and poorer global outcome (n = 13; r = 0.14; 95% CI 0.07-0.22). Other relationships were not significant. This was the first systematic review of the effects of age at onset on the long-term outcomes of schizophrenia. The results show that age at onset has a small, but significant impact on some of the outcomes of schizophrenia.

Keywords: age of onset; meta-analysis; patient outcome assessment; schizophrenia.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of the selection of studies (n, number of articles).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Correlations between age at onset and outcome categories. Positive correlation indicates that a younger age at onset results in poorer outcome (CI, conference interval; n, number of studies).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Addington, J. , & Addington, D. (2005). Patterns of premorbid functioning in first episode psychosis: Relationship to 2‐year outcome. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 112(1), 40–46. - PubMed
    1. Addington, J. , & Addington, D. (2008). Symptom remission in first episode patients. Schizophrenia Research, 106(2), 281–285. - PubMed
    1. Altamura, A. , Bassetti, R. , Sassella, F. , Salvadori, D. , & Mundo, E. (2001). Duration of untreated psychosis as a predictor of outcome in first‐episode schizophrenia: A retrospective study. Schizophrenia Research, 52(1), 29–36. - PubMed
    1. Amminger, G. P. , Henry, L. P. , Harrigan, S. M. , Harris, M. G. , Alvarez‐Jimenez, M. , Herrman, H. , et al. (2011). Outcome in early‐onset schizophrenia revisited: findings from the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre long‐term follow‐up study. Schizophrenia Research, 131(1), 112–119. - PubMed
    1. Andreasen, N. C. , Carpenter, W. T. , Kane, J. M. , Lasser, R. A. , Marder, S. R. , & Weinberger, D. R. (2005). Remission in schizophrenia: Proposed criteria and rationale for consensus. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(3), 441–449. - PubMed

MeSH terms