Childhood and adolescent psychosis: a review of the past 10 years

Abstract

Objective: Developmental aspects of psychosis are reviewed and related to the more frequent psychotic conditions in children and adolescents.

Method: The review of the recent literature focuses on developmental aspects of psychotic phenomena, i.e., hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder.

Results: While the applicability of much early work on this topic is limited, more recent work suggests that psychotic conditions are observed in childhood and increase in frequency during adolescence.

Conclusions: Developmental factors in the expression of psychosis are relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of such conditions.