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Published on: December 2, 2015
[French validation of a Minor Morphologic Anomalies Scale in schizophrenic patients and their parents]
D Gourion1, G Viot, C Goldberger
1SHU, Laboratoire Universitaire de Psychiatrie Biologique (EA 2501), UP V, Hôpital Sainte-Anne, 7, rue Cabanis, 75014 Paris.
Insights
Minor Physical Anomalies are linked to neurodevelopmental disorders like schizophrenia. A validated French scale reliably identifies these anomalies in patients and their parents, supporting the neurodevelopmental model.
Area of Science:
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Psychiatry
- Genetics
Background:
- Minor Physical Anomalies (MPAs) are indicators of early neurodevelopmental disturbances.
- MPAs are frequently observed in various brain disorders, including schizophrenia.
- A validated scale for MPA assessment in adult psychiatric patients, particularly those with schizophrenia, is needed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To revise and validate a French version of a scale for evaluating Minor Physical Anomalies in adult psychiatric patients.
- To assess the scale's reliability and utility in identifying neurodevelopmental markers in schizophrenia.
Main Methods:
- Revision of the Waldrop scale, focusing on frequency, adult reliability, and rating consistency.
- Inclusion of new items related to known syndromes with behavioral symptoms.
- Evaluation of inter-rater reliability between two blind examiners after a brief training period.
Main Results:
- The revised French MPA scale demonstrated good inter-rater reliability (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient = 0.97).
- Schizophrenia patients exhibited significantly more MPAs than control subjects and their parents.
- Parents of schizophrenia patients also showed significantly more MPAs than normal control subjects.
Conclusions:
- The revised French MPA scale is a reliable tool for assessing neurodevelopmental markers in psychiatric patients, especially schizophrenia.
- The scale effectively differentiates schizophrenia patients from their parents and controls.
- Findings support the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia and highlight the scale's utility in pathophysiological studies.
Unlabelled:
Minor Physical Anomalies represent valuable indices of disturbance in early neurodevelopment. They are frequently observed in individuals with various brain disorders, including mental retardation, autism, epilepsy, hyperactivity, foetal alcohol syndrome and schizophrenia. The high prevalence of Minor Physical Anomalies in schizophrenia provides considerable support for a neurodevelopmental model in this disorder. However, studies in large sample using standardised scale are lacking. Such studies are needed in order to confirm their actual frequency and study the clinical correlates or morphological anomalies.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to revise and validate a French version of a scale designed for the evaluation of Minor Physical Anomalies in adult psychiatric patients and notably in patients with schizophrenia.
Methodology:
The scale was revised from the Waldrop scale. The choice of items was done on the basis of frequency, reliability in the adult, reliability of rating. Some new items, related to know syndroms with comportmental symptoms were added. Both raters had previously had a short initiation to the rating of the scale. Interrater reliability between two examiners, blind with regards to the diagnosis was evaluated.
Results:
The interrater reliability was good, with an intraclass correlation coefficient at 0.97. Patients had significantly more minor physical anomalies than comparison subjects, and also more Minor Physical Anomalies than their parents. Fathers and mothers of these schizophrenic patients had significantly more Minor Physical Anomalies than normal comparison subjects.
Conclusion:
Although the evaluation of physical anomalies relies on subjective appreciation of normal vs abnormal, the revised version of minor physical anomalies scale (French version) was found to be a reliable tool, provided that a short initiation to the rating is performed. The scale differentiated schizophrenic patients from their parents, and the latter from the normal controls. A lot of questions remains unanswered concerning the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia. This scale appeared as a useful complementary tool to help in the determination of the developmental phenotypic status of the patients enrolled in pathophysiological studies aiming the identification of developmental factors in schizophrenia.
