Clinical and functional outcomes of community-recruited individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis: results from the Youth Mental Health Risk and Resilience Study (YouR-Study)

Abstract

Clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR-P) individuals are typically recruited from clinical services but the clinical and functional outcomes of community-recruited CHR-P individuals remain largely unclear. The Youth Mental Health Risk and Resilience Study (YouR-Study) obtained a community sample of CHR-P individuals through an online-screening approach and followed-up these individuals for a period of up to 3 years to determine transition rates, persistence of attenuated psychotic symptoms (APS) and functional outcomes. Baseline data were obtained from n = 144 CHR-P participants, n = 51 participants who met online cutoff criteria but not CHR-P criteria (CHR-Ns), and n = 58 healthy controls. Baseline assessments included clinical measures for assessing CHR-P status, including the Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental States (CAARMS) and the Schizophrenia Proneness Instrument, Adult version (SPI-A), as well as functioning and cognitive measures. CHR-P and CHR-N groups were followed-up. Results show that 12.1% of CHR-P individuals transitioned to psychosis over 3 years, with no transitions in the CHR-N group. Nearly 60% of CHR-P individuals experienced poor functional outcome (PFO) and over 40% experienced persistent APS. A combination of CAARMS/SPI-A criteria was associated with a higher likelihood of PFO, but not with transition to psychosis nor APS persistence. However, transition risk was generally higher among those meeting both CAARMS/SPI-A criteria (64.3%) vs CAARMS (28.6%) or SPI-A (7.1%) alone. In summary, community-recruited CHR-P individuals are characterized by similar clinical characteristics and longitudinal outcomes to those recruited from clinical services, emphasizing the need to widen the scope of early detection and intervention strategies.