Examining the joint contribution of trauma and adverse neighborhood characteristics to paranoid ideation.

It has been proposed that paranoid ideation may, in part, be a consequence of experiencing trauma and exposure to adverse environments. However, few studies have examined the joint contribution of these factors to paranoid ideation. Additionally, it is unclear if these associations are unique to paranoid ideation or if these factors are more broadly related to increases in symptomatology. In this study, we examined the association between paranoid ideation and other symptom dimensions with individual-level (i.e., personal trauma) and system-level (i.e., neighborhood) factors in a transdiagnostic sample, including individuals with psychosis spectrum disorders and community participants (N = 120). The study benefited from subjective self-report assessments and geocoded administrative metrics of neighborhood characteristics. Regression analyses indicated that trauma and perceptions of neighborhood crime were jointly related to both paranoid ideation and affective symptoms, even after controlling for income and education (accounting for over 33 % and 27 % of the variance in paranoid ideation and 37 % and 22 % of the variance in affective symptoms, respectively). Non-paranoid positive symptoms were also related to trauma, but were not related to neighborhood characteristics. Negative symptoms were unrelated to either trauma or neighborhood crime. These findings point to the need to assess both past trauma and current perceptions of neighborhood contextual factors to better understand and treat symptoms within the psychosis spectrum.