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This page last updated Jan
26 2005
Stuff
January 16, 2002
Researchers report link between schizophrenia and abuse
NZPA
Schizophrenia has been linked to childhood
sexual abuse by a groundbreaking study led by Auckland researchers.
The psychologists' research, published in an
American medical journal, has found that 50 percent of female psychiatric inpatients
surveyed in 15 international studies said they were sexually abused as girls.
It says women in psychiatric hospitals are at least
twice as likely as other women to have been abused.
Male psychiatric inpatients reported childhood
sexual abuse rates of between 22 and 39 percent – "at least double"
the rates among men in general.
"That doesn't prove that schizophrenia is
caused by child abuse," said principal researcher, Auckland University
clinical psychologist John Read.
"We are saying that for a significant
proportion of people diagnosed as schizophrenic, early child abuse will have
played a role."
The findings could lead to changes in the way
doctors treat schizophrenic patients, placing less emphasis on drugs.
The paper was co-written by American child
psychiatrist Bruce Perry, Auckland
University psychologist
Andrew Moskowitz and South Auckland Healthcare psychologist Jan Connolly.
It appears in the latest issue of Psychiatry:
Interpersonal and Biological Processes.
It includes a finding by Professor Perry that the
physical changes in brains of abused children are similar to those in
schizophrenic adults.
"If you go into the brain of a person
diagnosed as schizophrenic, you find all sorts of brain dysfunctions, and
therefore it's assumed that it's a biological illness," Dr Read said.
"They miss the rather obvious point that there
are all sorts of things that happened in those people's lives that caused
those brain patterns."
In 20 years of clinical experience before he took
up a senior lectureship at Auckland
seven years ago, Dr Read found that almost every patient could identify
traumas that caused his or her schizophrenia.
Apart from child abuse, common traumas included
losing parents and relationship breakups. Some became distressed by social
trauma.
"For example, people in the bottom
socio-economic bracket are several times more likely to be diagnosed
schizophrenic than people in the top bracket," he said.
"Ethnic minority groups and indigenous people
are diagnosed schizophrenic several times more often than the dominant
culture."
Dr Read said medication – the most popular
treatment – worked for only a third of patients.
"It's the other two thirds that need something
else – someone to talk to, or something more practical, such as strategies to
deal with their everyday needs."
However, the Auckland
branch chairman of the Schizophrenia Fellowship, psychologist Dr Geoff
Bridgman, said the research should be treated cautiously.
"There is no doubt that people who are
schizophrenics have had major experience of abuse in many if not most cases,
but they are post-illness," he said.
"Once you become ill, you are increasingly at
risk of abuse.
"Historically, in terms of institutional care,
you are almost automatically at risk of abuse."
Schizophrenia is a mental illness for which the
primary symptoms are hallucinations, delusions and thought disorders.
It is considered the most severe kind of mental
illness and affects 1 percent of the population.
Schizophrenia is a general term for a number of
severe mental disorders involving disturbed thought processes, withdrawal
from reality, and various emotional and behavioural symptoms.
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