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Abstract
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Sleep disturbance has been recognised as a key clinical feature of schizophrenia since the disorder's earliest conceptualisations at the start of the 1900s. 1
In the intervening century, an extensive literature has confirmed the high prevalence of sleep complaints among individuals with psychosis and their exacerbating effect on clinical and functional impairments. 2
However, only in the past decade has research focused on investigating sleep disturbances before psychosis onset (ie, among adolescents at clinical high risk of psychosis). By examining sleep during the prodromal period, researchers have hoped to answer two primary questions. The first question, regarding the aetiology of psychosis, is whether sleep has a role in driving psychosis onset during adolescence, 3
and indeed, accumulating evidence supports the pervasiveness of sleep complaints in clinical high-risk populations and longitudinal associations with worsened clinical outcomes. 4
Equally important is a second question regarding prevention: what if identifying and treating sleep disturbances could alter prognostic trajectories for adolescents at clinical high risk of psychosis, reducing psychosis and affective symptoms, improving cognition, and enhancing quality of life in the long term? 3
It would be--in a word--game-changing.
Language: en |