Although clinical heterogeneity of schizophrenia has been well established, attempts to account for variance in clinical measures, with environmental risk factors, have been limited. Previous studies failed to examine numerous course and outcome measures within the context of multiple risk factors, within one sample. The goal of this study was to examine the role of three environmental risk factors (birth season, prenatal maternal stress and obstetric complications (OCs)) in explaining heterogeneity in clinical measures in a single sample. Our results suggest the three risk variables are independent of one another. Our findings also consistently implicated summer-fall birth season with poor premorbid adjustment, and with greater negative symptomatology. A causal model with birth season, social problems, onset of prodrome and negative symptoms found both summer-fall birth and earlier onset of prodrome to directly predict greater negative symptoms. Summer-fall birth season also predicted earlier onset of prodrome, via greater childhood social problems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.29880 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Cunningham, Helen, 1973- |
| Contributors | King, Suzanne (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001681833, proquestno: MQ55045, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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