title: Typology of people with first-episode psychosis.
abstract: The aim of the current study was to create a typology of patients with first-episode psychosis based on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, service use and outcomes using cluster analysis.
  
  
  
  Data from all respondents who were accepted into the Early Psychosis Intervention Programme (EPIP), Singapore from 2007 to 2011 were analysed. A two-step clustering method was carried out to classify the patients into distinct clusters.
  
  
  
  Two clusters were identified. Cluster 1 comprised largely of younger people with mean age of 25.5 (6.0) years at treatment contact, who were predominantly male (55.3%), single (98.3%) and living with parents (86.3%). Cluster 1 had a higher proportion of people diagnosed with the schizophrenia spectrum disorder (71.4%) and with a positive family history of psychiatric illness. Patients in cluster 2 were generally older with a mean age of 33.6 (4.7) years and the majority were women (74.2%). Cluster 1 had people with higher Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores at baseline as compared with cluster 2. After a 1-year follow up, their scores were still poorer than their counterparts in cluster 2, especially for PANSS negative score. The functioning level of people in cluster 1 showed less improvement than the people in cluster 2 after a year of treatment.
  
  
  
  There is a compelling need to develop new therapies and intensively treat young people presenting with psychosis as this group tends to have poorer outcomes even after 1 year of treatment.
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Mythily
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Subramaniam
authors.affiliation: Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Huili
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Pauline
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Soh
authors.affiliation: Department of Early Psychosis Intervention, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Lye Yin
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Poon
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Janhavi A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Vaingankar
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.|Department of Early Psychosis Intervention, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Siow Ann
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.affiliation: Department of Early Psychosis Intervention, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Swapna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Verma
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003710:Demography; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D014150:Antipsychotic Agents
keywords: cluster analysis; first-episode psychosis; functioning; negative symptoms; typology