Browsing by Subject "psykoosioireet"

Psychotic disorders are quite rare but severe mental disorders. For example, the life time prevalence for schizophrenia is only 0.5 %, whereas the life time prevalence for psychotic symptoms is approximately 5 - 6 %. Psychotic symptoms can predict problems with mental health and they are often considered to be early signs of the beginning of a psychotic disorder. Psychotic disorders can cause impairments in a person’s ability to handle daily tasks and they are known to have a negative impact on the general quality of life. Therefore, it is extremely important to recognize factors that may cause psychotic disorders in order to prevent their development. It is known, that psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorders can be explained by multiple different factors, but it has been suggested that childhood sexual abuse is one of these explaining factors. However, victims of sexual abuse will not always develop a psychotic disorder. Therefore, it is especially important to understand, which of the underlying factors could possibly transmit or moderate the link between childhood sexual abuse and psychotic symptoms. When the association is known, victims of sexual abuse can be supported properly. For the literature selection of my thesis, I chose studies which discussed psychotic symptoms of persons with sexual abuse history in childhood as well as studies, which examined traumatic childhood experiences retrospectively of patients with first-episode psychosis. In addition, the literature selection included population based studies, which examined both sexual abuse history in childhood and psychotic symptoms from randomly selected sample. Many of the studies used retrospective self-report questionnaires in the collection of data, while there were also some studies where data was based on medical records. In my thesis I examine the link between childhood sexual abuse and psychotic symptoms and especially that which factors have an impact on such link and which moderate it. The symptoms of general psychopathology, such as anxiety, are essential factors transmitting the link. Additionally, other childhood trauma experiences also have an impact on the link: emotional and physical abuse transmit the path to the positive psychotic symptoms whereas physical neglect mediates the path to the negative symptoms. It is also known, that the link between sexual abuse and psychotic symptoms is stronger with females than males. Childhood sexual abuse is strongly associated with psychotic symptoms. Therefore, psychotic symptoms increase the risk of developing psychotic disorder and hence, it is important to take notice for the showing symptoms as soon as possible.