The impact of age on the validity of psychosis-risk screening in a sample of help-seeking youth

Date

2019-04

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

P.J. Rakhshan Rouhakhtar , Steven C. Pitts , Zachary B. Millman ,et.al, The impact of age on the validity of psychosis-risk screening in a sample of help-seeking youth, Psychiatry Research Volume 274, April 2019, Pages 30-35, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.02.020

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
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Abstract

Self-report screening instruments offer promise in furthering early identification of at-risk youth, yet current efforts are limited by false positive rates. Identifying moderators of accuracy is a potential step towards improving identification and prevention efforts. We investigated the moderating effect of age on self-reported attenuated positive symptoms from the Prime Screen and clinician diagnosed clinical high-risk/early psychosis (CHR/EP) status. Participants (N = 134) were racially diverse, lower-income, help-seeking adolescents and young adults from a primarily urban community. The overall model predicting CHR/EP status was significant, with results suggesting the presence of a trending interaction between age and Prime Screen symptoms. Analyses indicated that number of items endorsed to predict CHR/EP decreased with age (youngest group [M = 12.99] cut off = 6 items; middle age group [M = 14.97] cut off = 3; oldest age group [M = 18.40] cut off = 1). Although younger participants endorsed more risk items on average, follow up analyses suggested that the Prime Screen was a more accurate predictor of clinician-diagnosed-risk among older participants relative to their younger peers. The current study builds on the literature identifying moderators of psychosis-risk screening measure accuracy, highlighting potential limitations of CHR/EP screening tools in younger populations.