Family history identifies sporadic schizoaffective disorder as a subtype for genetic studies

South African Journal of Psychiatry

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Family history identifies sporadic schizoaffective disorder as a subtype for genetic studies
 
Creator van der Merwe, Nicolaas J. Karayiorgou, Maria Ehlers, René Roos, Johannes L.
 
Subject — schizophrenia; family history; genetic studies; novo genetic events; familial-sporadic distinction
Description Background: Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder with strong genetic vulnerability. Family history of schizophrenia has been considered in genetic studies under several models. De novo genetic events seem to play a larger role in sporadic cases.Aim: This study used the familial–sporadic distinction with the aim of identifying a more homogeneous phenotype to delineate the genetic and clinical complexity of schizophrenia.Setting: The study was conducted at Weskoppies Hospital, Pretoria, South Africa.Methods: The study included 384 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from the Afrikaner founder population in South Africa who are considered comparable to Caucasian patients from the United States. A comprehensive data capturing sheet was completed.Results: When schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder diagnoses were considered jointly, we found no significant differences between the sporadic and the familial groups for age at disease onset, season of birth, comorbid diagnoses, clinical symptomatology, history of suicide or marital status. When the diagnoses were examined separately, however, the sporadic schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, was found to have a significantly lower age at onset (mean 20.6 vs. 25.3 years).Conclusion: The sporadic schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, forms a more homogeneous subgroup for genetic studies.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor National Institute for Mental Health [grant number R01MH61399 to M. Karayiorgou], National Research Foundation [grant number IFR160224159056 to J. L. Roos]
Date 2020-04-20
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v26i0.1393
 
Source South African Journal of Psychiatry; Vol 26 (2020); 7 pages 2078-6786 1608-9685
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1393/1654 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1393/1652 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1393/1653 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1393/1651
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2020 Nicolaas J. van der Merwe, Maria Karayiorgou, René Ehlers, Johannes L. Roos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT