Schizophrenic with childhood trauma: characterization of a Tunisian sample

INTRODUCTION: Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental process affecting approximately 1% of the population. Multiple studies have found that Childhood trauma is an important risk factor in the emergence and clinical course of schizophrenia. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess the characteristics of schizophrenic inpatients with childhood trauma among a tunisian sample. METHODS: Stabilized inpatients with schizophrenia at the Psychiatry C department at University Hospital in Sfax were involved in our study. Sociodemographic and clinical data of patients were collected from medical records. We used Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) to evaluate the occurrence of childhood maltreatment. RESULTS: We recruited 33 patients, all men with a mean age of 35 years and 4 months (SD=9.44 years). They were married in 6.1% and 24.2% of patients had regular work. The mean age of onset of the disorder was 24.42(3.25).The level of poor psychotropic medication adherence was 72.7%. According to CTQ-SF, 78.8% of patients had experienced child trauma with a mean score of 35.67 (SD =8.61). A rate of 39.4% reported having experienced one child trauma, while 60.6% reported having experienced more than one. We found high rates of emotional neglect (87.8%) while emotional and physical abuse during childhood were experienced by 39.4%, and 6% respectively and physical neglect were found in 30.3% of cases. Patients with more than one childhood trauma were found to have an earlier onset of psychosis (p=0.004) The occurrence of childhood trauma was not associated with the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents or the clinical features of the disease. CONCLUSIONS: The results point toward childhood emotional neglect being of specific importance to schizophrenia, which may be an area for future prevention and clinical attention. DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST: None Declared