PTSD and Psychotic Symptoms - Relationship between PTSD and Psychotic Symptoms
The researchers also found evidence that the more PTSD symptoms a person was experiencing, the greater the likelihood that they would also experience positive psychotic symptoms.
To take their study a step further, the researchers also looked at what traumatic events were most commonly related to the experience of psychotic symptoms. They found the following to be most strongly connected:
•Being involved in a fire, flood, or natural disaster
•Seeing someone get seriously injured or killed
•Experiencing tremendous shock as a result of a traumatic event that happened to a close relative, friend, or significant other
What This All Means
The experience of psychotic symptoms may tell the story of just how severe a person's case of PTSD is and how well he or she is coping with the condition. It may also raise red flags about the likelihood of potentially dangerous behaviors.
Current Psychiatry Reports, Volume 5, Number 3 - SpringerLink
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can result in serious and disabling neuropsychiatric disorders, such as cognitive deficits and personality change, as well as severe and chronic psychosis. This review focuses on the relationship between TBI and schizophrenia-like psychosis (SLP) including its epidemiology, diagnostic criteria, clinical presentation, psychopathology, risk factors, and pathophysiology. The relationships between post-traumatic epilepsy and SLP, and brain trauma and schizophrenia, are also discussed. The risk of SLP does increase after TBI. The clinical presentation has considerable overlap with primary schizophrenic disorder, with a prominence of persecutory and other delusions and auditory hallucinations, as well as a lack of negative symptoms. The onset is often gradual, with a subacute or chronic course. More severe and diffuse brain injury, especially of the temporal and frontal lobes, is the most prominent risk factor. Genetic load may also play a role, but presence of epilepsy could be a protective factor. Further large and systematic longitudinal studies are needed.