ArticlePsychological medicine2020
The relationship between childhood trauma and schizophrenia in the Genomics of Schizophrenia in the Xhosa people (SAX) study in South Africa.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Health effects associated with exposure of children to physical violence, psychological violence and neglect: a Burden of Proof study.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Cumulative exposure to childhood adversity and risk of adult psychosis: a dose-response meta-analysis.Psychological medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Health effects associated with exposure to intimate partner violence against women and childhood sexual abuse: a burden of proof study.Nature medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Sociodemographic outcomes of childhood trauma experiences among young adults in the rural community of South Africa.Health SA = SA Gesondheid · 2026Article
- Exploring the relationships between Early Childhood Adversity, Social Cognition, and Aggression in a South African Study of People Living with Schizophrenia.Schizophrenia research. Cognition · 2025Review
- Orbitofrontal functional network: the mediating role between violence and childhood trauma in patients with schizophrenia.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- The relationship between lifetime trauma exposure and psychosis in a multi-country case-control study in Africa.SSM. Mental health · 2025Article
- Correlates of adverse childhood experiences among admitted patients with schizophrenia in a referral psychiatric hospital in Botswana.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2025Article
- Association between Adverse Childhood Experiences and long-term outcomes in people at Clinical High-Risk for Psychosis.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Relationships between trauma types and psychotic symptoms: A network analysis of patients with psychotic disorders in a large, multi-country study in East Africa.Comprehensive psychiatry · 2024Article
- Linking childhood trauma to the psychopathology of schizophrenia: the role of oxytocin.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Adverse childhood experiences among people with schizophrenia at comprehensive specialized hospitals in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: a comparative study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Experiences of trauma among persons living with psychosis in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.PLOS mental health · 2024Article
- Predictors of within-individual variability in cognitive performance in schizophrenia in a South African case-control study.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2023Article
- Adverse childhood experiences in patients with schizophrenia: related factors and clinical implications.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Contextualizing the impact of prenatal alcohol and tobacco exposure on neurodevelopment in a South African birth cohort: an analysis from the socioecological perspective.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2023Article
- Risk factors for cardiovascular disease among people with mental illness in Namibia.Ghana medical journal · 2022Observational
- Prevalence, profile and associations of cognitive impairment in Ugandan first-episode psychosis patients.Schizophrenia research. Cognition · 2022Article
- The shallow cognitive map hypothesis: A hippocampal framework for thought disorder in schizophrenia.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2022Review
- Astrocytes and Microglia in Stress-Induced Neuroinflammation: The African Perspective.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEvidence from high-income countries suggests that childhood trauma is associated with schizophrenia. Studies of childhood trauma and schizophrenia in low and middle income (LMIC) countries are limited. This study examined the prevalence of childhood traumatic experiences among cases and controls and the relationship between specific and cumulative childhood traumatic experiences and schizophrenia in a sample in South Africa.
methodsData were from the Genomics of Schizophrenia in the South African Xhosa people study. Cases with schizophrenia and matched controls were recruited from provincial hospitals and clinics in the Western and Eastern Cape regions in South Africa. Childhood traumatic experiences were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Adjusted logistic regression models estimated associations between individual and cumulative childhood traumatic experiences and schizophrenia.
resultsTraumatic experiences were more prevalent among cases than controls. The odds of schizophrenia were 2.44 times higher among those who experienced any trauma than those who reported no traumatic experiences (95% CI 1.77-3.37). The odds of schizophrenia were elevated among those who experienced physical/emotional abuse (OR 1.59, CI 1.28-1.97), neglect (OR 1.39, CI 1.16-1.68), and sexual abuse (OR 1.22, CI 1.03-1.45) compared to those who did not. Cumulative physical/emotional abuse and neglect experiences increased the odds of schizophrenia as a dose-response relationship.
conclusionChildhood trauma is common in this population. Among many other benefits, interventions to prevent childhood trauma may contribute to a decreasing occurrence of schizophrenia.
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