A prospective study of offspring of women with psychosis: visual dysfunction in early childhood predicts schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood.
OBJECTIVE
Children with visual dysfunction have perinatal, neurological, visual-perceptual and cognitive abnormalities, similar to schizophrenia patients. We prospectively investigated whether visual dysfunction in childhood selectively predicts adult schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and is related to childhood neurological abnormality.


METHODS
Offspring of mothers with and without a history of psychosis were prospectively assessed with vision tests at 4 years, neurological examinations at 6 years, and interviews for psychiatric disorders at follow-up (93% effective, n=166) at 22 years.


RESULTS
In the total sample and high-risk (HR) offspring, visual dysfunction at 4 years, and its severity, were associated only with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood, and with neurological abnormality at 6 years.


CONCLUSIONS
Visual dysfunction at 4 years of age selectively predicts schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood among HR offspring, this likely reflecting disturbed neurological development.
Schubert
E W
EW
Unit of Psychiatric Epidemiology, University Hospital, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Henriksson
K M
KM
McNeil
T F
TF
D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010375:Pedigree; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology