Thought Disorders in Depressive Adolescents with High-Risk for Schizophrenia

Background: the need to develop methods for early diagnostics and preventive interventions in individuals at clinical high-risk state for schizophrenia requires studying the characteristics of the specific symptoms of pre-onset stages. One of such symptoms may be thought disorder, which still have an ambiguous position in the psychopathological structure of schizophrenia.

Aim: correlation analysis of thought disorders in patients with first depressive episode with attenuated symptoms of schizophrenia (ASS).

Patients and methods: the study included 30 young men (mean age 19.2 ± 2.1 years) hospitalized with the first depressive episode (F32.1, F32.2, F32.28, F32.8 on ICD-10), in the structure of which ASS were noted. The severity of thought disorders was assessed using the Thought, Language and Communication scale (TLC) before discharge. Subsequently was performed the search for correlations of scores on the TLC and other characteristics as duration of the current depressive episode, severity of depressive symptoms according to the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), the severity of ASS according to Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS) and Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), drug therapy doses.

Results: the median value of the total score on the TLC was 20 [17.3;23.5]. The most important finding is the discovery of only weak correlations of thought disorders with depressive affect and ASS. Indeed, the total score on the TLC correlated only with the total score on the SOPS at admission (r = 0.370, p < 0.05), which refiects the relationship between the thought disorders and the activity of endogenous process in the early stages, and with the SANS subscale “Attention” at discharge (r = 0.388, p < 0.05), which also indirectly refiects the existing thought disorders. The greatest number of correlations was demonstrated by the TLC parameter “Illogicality”.

Conclusion: the data obtained indicates the independent nature of thought disorders in youth patients with first-onset of depression, which indicates the need to determine its independent prognostic value for schizophrenia manifestation.

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