Cross-Sectional Descriptive Pilot Study on the Risk of Psychotic Disorders among Adolescents

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is a key stage for the development of different mental disorders, particularly psychotic disorders. This stage of life is accompanied by new habits or behaviours that can make a person more vulnerable to developing a psychotic disorder or, on the contrary, play a protective role.

Objective: To study the vulnerability to developing a psychotic disorder in adolescents and to analyse the main risk factors.

Materials and methods: This is an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study. The data collection was conducted using the Prodromal Questionnaire Brief Version (PQ-B) test and a self-developed questionnaire based on the vulnerability-stress model.

Results: Of the total sample (n = 44), 65.9% were male and 100% lived in a rural environment. In general, among risk factors (stress, alcohol and cannabis consumption, history, bullying, traumatic event and sedentary lifestyle), alcohol consumption and the presence of stress were found to have high values. Furthermore, a risk of psychosis was found in 38.6% of the studied population. Of this percentage of adolescents at risk, 64.7% consumed alcohol (p = 0.99) and 82.4% suffered from stress (p = 0.7161). The protective factor (physical activity) was found in more than half (59% p = 0.16).

Conclusions: There is a high risk of psychosis among the young adolescents assessed in this study, where the explanatory factors identified with higher values were alcohol consumption and the presence of stress.

Keywords: adolescence; early intervention; occupational therapy; psychotic disorder; risk factors.

Figure 1

Results of the Prodromal Questionnaire Brief Version (PQ-B) test scores according to the age of the participants.