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Schizophrenia with childhood and adolescent onset — a nationwide register‐based study
Author(s) -
Thomsen P. H.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1996.tb09847.x
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychiatry , childhood schizophrenia , diagnosis of schizophrenia , medical diagnosis , personality disorders , age of onset , pediatrics , psychiatric diagnosis , personality , psychology , medicine , psychosis , disease , social psychology , pathology
The aim of this study was to determine the frequency, demographic characteristics and course of children and adolescents admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia before the age of 18 years. The paper describes 312 patients from Denmark who were given a diagnosis of schizophrenia during the period between 1970 and 1993. Schizophrenia with a childhood onset was extremely rare. Only four children under the age of 13 years and 28 children under the age of 15 years had received such a diagnosis. The study showed that a number of adolescents who were diagnosed with schizophrenia at their first admission were not given the same diagnosis at later admissions in adulthood. The most common diagnoses in this group of apparently misdiagnosed cases were personality disorders, primarily borderline and antisocial personality disorder.