Trauma profile in Egyptian adolescents with first-episode schizophrenia: relation to psychopathology and plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

We aimed to investigate the relation of trauma profile to schizophrenia psychopathology in a sample of Egyptian drug-naïve adolescent patients with first-episode schizophrenia. In addition, a hypothesized mediating effect of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in this relation was formally tested. We assessed 74 eligible outpatients using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for measuring psychopathology. Trauma histories were recorded with the help of the Cumulative Trauma Measure. Serum BDNF levels were estimated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Total cumulative trauma, personal identity trauma, and survival trauma were found to be the significant predictors for schizophrenia psychopathology. BDNF fully mediated the associations between total cumulative trauma and overall schizophrenia psychopathology. BDNF also mediated the associations between some types of trauma and both PANSS-positive and PANSS-negative symptom factors. We concluded that total cumulative trauma and certain trauma types are linked with schizophrenia psychopathology. BDNF appears to mediate these links.