Estacionalidad de la esquizofrenia: hallazgos de un estudio descriptivo ejecutado en Santa Marta, Colombia

INTRODUCTION: Multiple studies carried out around the globe have concluded that there is a seasonal effect on the births of patients that will go on to develop schizophrenia later on. A relationship between being exposed to certain infectious agents during the prenatal period and possible direct effects on the developing brain that will later be expressed by the classical clinical picture has been suggested. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the behavior of births in a sample of individuals with schizophrenia from Santa Marta, Colombia. METHODS: Descriptive study based on the review of clinical histories of the patients seen in a psychiatric institute. DISCUSSION: A larger number of births took place during the rainiest months of the year suggesting a possible seasonal effect. However, the lack of data on births in Santa Marta during the years of the study did not allow a comparison between the results of the study and the birth rates of the general population. Even so, these findings have implications for future research regarding seasonality of schizophrenia in Colombia. They do not reflect an individual risk of developing the illness but they do document the characteristics of the temporal behavior of the births in the sample studied. Further studies that overcome the limitations of the present one are needed.