Associations between patterns in comorbid diagnostic trajectories of individuals with schizophrenia and etiological factors

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder, exhibiting variability in presentation and outcomes that complicate treatment and recovery. To explore this heterogeneity, we leverage the comprehensive Danish health registries to conduct a prospective, longitudinal study from birth of 5432 individuals who would ultimately be diagnosed with schizophrenia, building individual trajectories that represent sequences of comorbid diagnoses, and describing patterns in the individual-level variability. We show that psychiatric comorbidity is prevalent among individuals with schizophrenia (82%) and multi-morbidity occur more frequently in specific, time-ordered pairs. Three latent factors capture 79% of variation in longitudinal comorbidity and broadly relate to the number of co-occurring diagnoses, the presence of child versus adult comorbidities and substance abuse. Clustering of the factor scores revealed five stable clusters of individuals, associated with specific risk factors and outcomes. The presentation and course of schizophrenia may be associated with heterogeneity in etiological factors including family history of mental disorders.

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder where individuals experience different symptoms and outcomes that can be captured by patterns in other diagnoses. Here the authors use computational approaches to summarize these patterns and suggest they are associated with genetic and environmental exposure.