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Environmental Factors in the Etiology of Mental Disorders in the Czech Republic
Ladislav Hosak1, Kristyna Hosakova1, Mohammad Malekirad1
1Department of Psychiatry, Charles University, School of Medicine in Hradec Kralove and University Hospital, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.
Background:
Both genetic and environmental factors are important in etiology of mental disorders. Calculating polyenviromic risk/protective scores provides an updated perspective in research on the environmental causes of psychiatric disorders. We aimed to compare environmental risk and protective factors in patients with psychosis or a mood disorder (PSYCH+MOOD) and those with an anxiety disorder (ANX).
Methods:
We administered the internationally accepted questionnaire from the EUropean Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI) study, enriched with mood and anxiety disorder-relevant measures, to patients at two large university hospitals in the Czech Republic.
Results:
Ninety-four PSYCH+MOOD patients (average age 42.5 years; 46 males) and 52 ANX patients (average age 47.2 years; 17 males) participated. Neither polyenviromic risk score nor polyenviromic protective score differed significantly between PSYCH+MOOD and ANX groups (p = 0.149; p = 0.466, respectively).
Conclusion:
Scientific validity of the polyenviromic risk/protective score construct must still be demonstrated in large psychiatric samples, ideally in prospective studies. Nevertheless, researchers have already started to investigate environmental factors in the etiology of mental disorders in their complexity, similarly to polygenic risk scores.
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