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. 2022 May 7;48(3):575-589.
doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbac004.

Childhood Maltreatment, Educational Attainment, and IQ: Findings From a Multicentric Case-control Study of First-episode Psychosis (EU-GEI)

Lucia Sideli  1   2 , Adriano Schimmenti  3 , Daniele La Barbera  4 , Caterina La Cascia  4 , Laura Ferraro  4 , Monica Aas  2   5   6 , Luis Alameda  2   7 , Eva Velthorst  8   9   10 , Helen L Fisher  11   12 , Vincenzo Caretti  1 , Giulia Trotta  2 , Giada Tripoli  2   4 , Diego Quattrone  11 , Charlotte Gayer-Anderson  11   13 , Fabio Seminerio  4 , Crocettarachele Sartorio  4 , Giovanna Marrazzo  4 , Antonio Lasalvia  14 , Sarah Tosato  14 , Ilaria Tarricone  15 , Domenico Berardi  16 , Giuseppe D'Andrea  16 , Celso Arango  17 , Manuel Arrojo  18 , Miguel Bernardo  19 , Julio Bobes  20 , Julio Sanjuán  21 , Jose Luis Santos  22 , Paulo Rossi Menezes  23 , Cristina Marta Del-Ben  24 , Hannah E Jongsma  25   26 , Peter B Jones  27   28 , James B Kirkbride  25 , Pierre-Michel Llorca  28 , Andrea Tortelli  29 , Baptiste Pignon  30   31   32 , Lieuwe de Haan  33 , Jean-Paul Selten  34   35 , Jim Van Os  2   35   36 , Bart P Rutten  35 , Marta Di Forti  11 , Craig Morgan  12   13 , Robin M Murray  2 ; EU-GEI WP2 Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Childhood Maltreatment, Educational Attainment, and IQ: Findings From a Multicentric Case-control Study of First-episode Psychosis (EU-GEI)

Lucia Sideli et al. Schizophr Bull. .

Abstract

Background and hypothesis: Evidence suggests that childhood maltreatment (ie, childhood abuse and childhood neglect) affects educational attainment and cognition. However, the association between childhood maltreatment and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) seems stronger among controls compared to people with psychosis. We hypothesised that: the association between childhood maltreatment and poor cognition would be stronger among community controls than among people with first-episode of psychosis (FEP); compared to abuse, neglect would show stronger associations with educational attainment and cognition; the association between childhood maltreatment and IQ would be partially accounted for by other risk factors; and the association between childhood maltreatment, educational attainment, and IQ would be stronger among patients with affective psychoses compared to those with nonaffective psychoses.

Study design: 829 patients with FEP and 1283 community controls from 16 EU-GEI sites were assessed for child maltreatment, education attainment, and IQ.

Study results: In both the FEP and control group, childhood maltreatment was associated with lower educational attainment. The association between childhood maltreatment and lower IQ was robust to adjustment for confounders only among controls. Whereas childhood neglect was consistently associated with lower attainment and IQ in both groups, childhood abuse was associated with IQ only in controls. Among both patients with affective and nonaffective psychoses, negative associations between childhood maltreatment and educational attainment were observed, but the crude association with IQ was only evident in affective psychoses.

Conclusions: Our findings underscore the role of childhood maltreatment in shaping academic outcomes and cognition of people with FEP as well as controls.

Keywords: IQ; childhood abuse; childhood neglect; psychosis; schizophrenia.

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