Body mass index (BMI) of drug-naive psychotic adolescents based on a population of adolescent psychiatric inpatients

Objective. - To investigate the connection between Overweight and first-episode schizophrenia spectrum as well as non-schizophrenia spectrum psychiatric disorders lit adolescent male and female drug-naive psychiatric inpatients, whose illness was early onset. Method. - Three hundred twenty-three adolescents with no past or present psychiatric medication, 12-17 years of ape. admitted to the psychiatric inpatient care (Oulu University Hospital. Northern Finland) between April 2001 and March 2006. DSM-IV diagnoses were based on the Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children Present and Lifetime (K-SADS-PL). Ail adolescent was defined as overweight if his or her BMI was greater than or equal to the 85th percentile. Results. - Overweight values were highest in drug-naive adolescent boys with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum (RR: 2.5, 95%CI: 1.08-4.29) and non-schizophrenia spectrum (RR: 2.80, 95%CI: 2.20-3.45) disorders. The RR in girls with non-schizophrenia spectrum disorders was 1.73 (95%Cl: 1.31-2.23). but in those with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders RR did not differ from general population. Conclusions. - In Our sample of first-episode schizophrenia spectrum drug-naive adolescents, overweight was shown to be prevalent in all diagnostic groups other than first-episode schizophrenia spectrum psychotic girls. To the best of our knowledge. this is the first study in which overweight was analyzed and verified among drug-naive adolescent boys, suffering from first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorder. To what extent Our results are applicable to other regions and study groups, remains to be seen. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.