The relation between childhood maltreatment and psychosis in patients with schizophrenia and non-psychiatric controls

Several lines of evidence suggest that childhood maltreatment is associated with an increased risk for both psychotic disorders and subclinical psychotic-like experiences in the general population. Few studies, however, have sought to examine whether the strength of this relationship is comparable across patient and non-patient groups. The present study sought to compare the strength of the association between childhood maltreatment and self-reported psychotic symptoms in 447 healthy adult volunteers and 184 stable outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Strong positive correlations between childhood maltreatment and self-reported symptoms were observed in both groups. Although patients scored significantly higher than controls on both history of childhood maltreatment and self-reported symptoms, the strength of the relationship did not differ between groups. These data provide strong support for etiological continuity between subclinical psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorders.