Association of trauma, post traumatic stress disorder and non-affective psychosis across the life course: a nationwide prospective cohort study

Allardyce, Judith ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4094-552X, Hollander, Anna-Clara, Rahman, Syed, Dalman, Christina and Zammit, Stan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2647-9211 2023. Association of trauma, post traumatic stress disorder and non-affective psychosis across the life course: a nationwide prospective cohort study. Psychological Medicine 53 (4) , pp. 1620-1628. 10.1017/S0033291721003287

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Abstract

Background We aimed to examine the temporal relationships between traumatic events (TE), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and non-affective psychotic disorders (NAPD). Methods A prospective cohort study of 1 965 214 individuals born in Sweden between 1971 and 1990 examining the independent effects of interpersonal and non-interpersonal TE on incidence of PTSD and NAPD using data from linked register data (Psychiatry-Sweden). Mediation analyses tested the hypothesis that PTSD lies on a causal pathway between interpersonal trauma and NAPD. Results Increasing doses of interpersonal and non-interpersonal TE were independently associated with increased risk of NAPD [linear-trend incidence rate ratios (IRR)adjusted = 2.17 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.02–2.33] and IRRadjusted = 1.27 (95% CI 1.23–1.31), respectively]. These attenuated to a relatively small degree in 5-year time-lagged models. A similar pattern of results was observed for PTSD [linear-trend IRRadjusted = 3.43 (95% CI 3.21–3.66) and IRRadjusted = 1.45 (95% CI 1.39–1.50)]. PTSD was associated with increased risk of NAPD [IRRadjusted = 8.06 (95% CI 7.23–8.99)], which was substantially attenuated in 5-year time-lagged analyses [IRRadjusted = 4.62 (95% CI 3.65–5.87)]. There was little evidence that PTSD diagnosis mediated the relationship between interpersonal TE and NAPD [IRRadjusted = 0.92 (percentile CI 0.80–1.07)]. Conclusion Despite the limitations to causal inference inherent in observational designs, the large effect-sizes observed between trauma, PTSD and NAPD in this study, consistent across sensitivity analyses, suggest that trauma may be a component cause of psychotic disorders. However, PTSD diagnosis might not be a good proxy for the likely complex psychological mechanisms mediating this association.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG)
Additional Information:	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0033-2917
Funders:	Wellcome Trust
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 August 2021
Date of Acceptance:	21 July 2021
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2023 00:12
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/143274

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