Transition to psychosis status in vulnerable adolescents is an interesting domain in studying the possibility of designing more specific and individually tailored interventions to find out whether it is possible to prevent the transition to proper Schizophrenia. The Vulnerability- Stress Model (Zubin, Spring 1977) is a well stablished theoretical framework to study this domain. Several variables have been considered as specific risk factors associates to the likelihood of transition: urbanicity, laterality, drugs consumption, migration, early trauma, etc.
The presentation will consider variables associated with the family, as found in the data collected in a research project conducted on 170 adolescents treated in a psychiatric day hospital. As expected, preliminary rough data found significant differences between our sample and general population in domains as trauma, anhedonia, gender bias, and global functioning. Also found significative correlation with level of psychopathology in parents, however, did not find significant differences in other domains assessed in the Interview (i.e. divorce rates). However, there is a strong suspect that this lack of correlation is due to lack of sensibility of the semi-structure interview, given the interview was not designed to assess other important traits in families (i.e. qualitative dysfunctional relations among parents of within the family).
The presentation will consider data from available literature regarding this topic and propose a panel discussion.