SynthesisActa psychiatrica Scandinavica2021
Month of birth and mental disorders: A population-based study and validation using global meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Specificity of environmental risk factors for schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depressive disorders - umbrella review.Psychological medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Do prenatal factors shape the risk for dementia?: A systematic review of the epidemiological evidence for the prenatal origins of dementia.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis: relative age in attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Analysis of DNA methylation at birth and in childhood reveals changes associated with season of birth and latitude.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Pooled it
- Month of birth and the risk of narcolepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Birth seasonality and height in patients with schizophrenia: a multi-institutional cohort study.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- All-cause and cause-specific mortality in gambling disorder: Evidence from a nation-wide matched and sibling cohort study in Taiwan.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- Predicting five-year comorbid bipolar disorder after attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnosis: a population-based machine learning approach.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2025Article
- Schizophrenia.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2025Review
- All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Patients With Narcolepsy.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Relative Age in School and Initiation of Speech Therapy in Children.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Relative age as a risk factor for psychiatric diagnoses in children born preterm and to term: a cohort study.BMJ paediatrics open · 2025Article
- The Impact of Seasonality on Mental Health Disorders: A Narrative Review and Extension of the Immunoseasonal Theory.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- The Moderating Role of Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors for Schizophrenia on the Relationship between Autistic Traits and Psychosis Expression in the General Population.Schizophrenia bulletin open · 2025Article
- Investigating the association between season of birth and symptoms of depression and anxiety in adults.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Increased brain gyrification and cortical thinning in winter-born patients with schizophrenia spectrum.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Mortality and Lithium-Protective Effects after First-Episode Mania Diagnosis in Bipolar Disorder: A Nationwide Retrospective Cohort Study in Taiwan.Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2024Article
- Allergen Tests of Fruit Sensitization Involving Children with Allergic Diseases.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Article
- Differences in Psychiatric Comorbidities and Gender Distribution among Three Clusters of Personality Disorders: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveMonth of birth (MOB) is associated with specified mental disorders (MDs). However, whether these relationships extend to all MDs remains unclear. We investigate the association using a population-based cohort study and a meta-analysis.
methodsFirst, we examined patients with 34 DSM-5-classified MDs in the Taiwan national database. We estimated the relative risk ratios (RR) of each illness in each MOB relative to that in the general population and assessed the periodicity, with six further sensitivity analyses. Second, we searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane for related articles through 31 December 2020. We used a random-effects model, pooled RRs with 95% confidence intervals of each MOB from the identified studies, and transformed them from MOB to relative age in a year or season.
resultsThe cohort included 1,951,777 patients. Except for posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorders, feeding/eating disorders, gender dysphoria, and paraphilic disorders, the other MDs had significant MOB periodicity. The meta-analysis included 51 studies investigating 10 MDs. The youngest age at the start of school owing to MOB was associated with the highest RRs of intellectual disability (1.13), autism (1.05), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (1.13). Winter births had significant risks of schizophrenia (1.04), bipolar I disorder (1.02), and major depressive disorder (1.01), and autumn births had a significant risk of alcohol use disorder (1.02). No significant associations between season of birth and Alzheimer's disease, or eating disorders were found.
conclusionsMOB is related to the risks of certain MDs. This finding provides a reference for future research on the etiology of MDs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.