Project Summary

Chlara Nosarti, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2005) of the Institute of Psychiatry/King’s College of London and the University of London, plans to further study the relationship between an individual’s exposure to obstetric complications and an increased risk of schizophrenia. Dr. Nosarti aims to investigate the issue by using data from two Swedish population-based registers, the Birth Register and the Inpatient Register. In the databases, Dr. Nosarti plans to select all individuals who were born preterm (less than 36 weeks), between 1973 and 2001 (n=190,487), and subdivide the group into ‘very preterm’ (before 32 weeks, n=34,853) and ‘moderately preterm’ (between 32 and 36 weeks, n=155,634). Dr. Nosarti will then identify all individuals born preterm who are subsequently listed in the inpatient register as having been first admitted to hospital from 1987 through 2002 with a main psychiatric diagnosis (n=2,608) including schizophrenia, affective psychosis, bipolar and/or developmental disorder. For each case, she will select five controls individually matched by sex, year and hospital of birth. She will then study the effects of the following potential perinatal risk factors for each of the psychiatric disorders under investigation: birth weight, maternal and paternal family history, parity, hypertensive disease, diabetes, various pregnancy and delivery complications, birth traumas, head injury and accidents in childhood.

Program Area: MULTIPLE FOCUS AREAS\Mood Disorders/Schizophrenia

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