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Impact of early onset of chronic physical multimorbidities on schizophrenia spectrum disorder treatment outcome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

I. Šimunović Filipčić*
Affiliation:
University Hospital Zagreb, Department Of Psychiatry And Psychological Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia
I. Filipcic
Affiliation:
Psychiatric Clinic “Sveti Ivan”, Psychiatry, Zagreb, Croatia
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Despite of the heightened risks and burdens of physical comorbidities across the entire schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD), relatively little is known about physical multimorbidity (CPM) in this population. The study’s main objective was to explore the differences in the CPM prevalence between SSD patients and the general population (GEP).

Objectives

The primary outcome was to explore the difference in CPM prevalence in the younger SSD and GEP groups (<35 years).The secondary outcome was the number of psychiatric readmissions.

Methods

This nested cross-sectional study enrolled 343 SSD patients and 620 GEP participants.

Results

Younger SSD patients had more than three-fold higher odds for CPM than GEP. We also demonstrated an association between the presence of CPM and the number of psychiatric admissions in the SSD population independently of possible confounders. We did not observe significant interaction of CPM and age in the prediction of clozapine use. Younger women with SSD had statistically significant, almost four-fold higher odds of CPM than women from GEP.

Conclusions

This study suggests that women with SSD are at increased physical comorbidity risk compared to men, particularly early in the course of psychiatric illness. Our results highlight the importance of addressing physical health from the first contact with a mental health service to preserve general health, and provide the best possible treatment outcome. Treatment of SSD must be customized to meet the needs of patients with different physical multimorbidity patterns.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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