Advances in clinical staging, early intervention, and the prevention of psychosis

Abstract

The development of effective intervention and prevention strategies among individuals with psychosis risk syndromes may help to reduce symptomatology and conversion to a psychotic disorder. Although strides have been made in this area, more work is needed, particularly given the setbacks that remain (such as heterogeneity among this group). There has been a shift with the introduction of clinical staging models toward expanding current intervention and prevention efforts to a more developmental and transdiagnostic approach. With this, this article seeks to review treatments both recently and currently discussed in the staging literature, introduce advances in psychosis risk syndrome treatments that may be beneficial to consider in clinical staging heuristics, and pinpoint other promising options.

Keywords: Psychosis Risk Syndromes; Psychosis; Clinical Staging; Intervention; Prevention.

Figure 1.. Signs, symptoms, markers, and interventions from a clinical staging perspective in psychosis risk syndromes.

Many of the signs and markers may occur in different stages and overlap between stages. Furthermore, it is important to note that many of the individuals who may exhibit signs and symptoms that put them on the trajectory toward developing a psychotic disorder may not go on to develop a diagnosis and instead may improve or develop a different psychopathology. HPA, hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal.