OBJECTIVE
To establish the premorbid features in youth depression patients with attenuated symptoms of schizophrenia (ASS) and in a comparison group, with an analysis of the course of age crises, signs of personality disorders, level of premorbid functioning and their relationship with the level of functioning after five-year follow-up.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Two hundred and nineteen youth depression patients with ASS (according to ICD-10: F32.1, F32.2, F32.28, F32.8) (main group) and 52 patients with «pure» adolescent depression without ASS (comparison group) were examined. A total of 124 patients from the main group and 27 patients from the comparison group were examined in 5-year follow-up. The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) was used to assess premorbid functioning and the Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scale was used to determine function at the time of the follow-up. The method of χ2 was used to analyze qualitative data. The correlation analysis was performed with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Results are presented as median values [Q1; Q3].
RESULTS
The main group of patients with ASS have worse psychopathological symptoms compared with the comparison group (χ2=4.74; p=0.029). Premorbid functioning was also lower in the period 12—15 years (0.4 [0.33; 0.5]) and 16—18 years (0.47 [0.385; 0.585]) than in the comparison group (0.3 [0.23; 0.43] and 0.37 [0.23; 0.462], respectively, (p<0.05)). Negative correlation has been established between average PAS scores in the age of 12—15 and 16—18 years and the five-year follow-up on the PSP scale (r=–0.276, p<0.05 and r=–0.359, p<0.05 respectively).
CONCLUSION
Similar characteristics of the premorbid period in childhood and an increase in differences starting from the pubertal period reflect the pathogenetic significance of the pubertal crisis and suggest compensatory mechanisms that, in patients with youth depression with ASS, are able to restrain the development of the endogenous process for a certain time, but subsequently become exhausted, which leads to persistence of psychopathological symptoms in intercrisis periods and serves as the first clinical marker of the onset of schizophrenia.
