Clinical and Psychosocial Characterization of At-Risk Mental State and Recent Onset Psychosis Patients from an Early Psychosis Program in Barcelona (Spain).

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to describe and compare socio-demographic, background, treatment history, and service use, psychopathological and psychosocial characteristics of At-Risk Mental States (ARMS) and First-Episode Psychosis (FEP) patients from the Sant Pere Claver-Early Psychosis Program (SPC-EPP) in Barcelona.

METHODS: 43 ARMS-patients and 40 FEP-patients were assessed with several clinical and psychosocial measures at study baseline.

RESULTS: Clinical and psychosocial characteristics of the SPC-EPP sample were comparable to those of previous early psychosis studies. Overall, the socio-demographic and clinical background characteristics appeared to be mostly similar between ARMS and FEP patients. As expected, groups differed on history of previous psychiatric hospitalizations and current psychiatric treatment. The age at onset of both unspecific and prodromal symptoms, and age of first specialized psychiatric/psychological treatment were earlier in ARMS than in FEP-patients. FEP-patients showed higher scores on positive symptoms, cognitive and greater overall symptom severity than ARMS-patients. ARMS-patients showed higher scores on mania, general psychopathology and a slightly lower premorbid functioning since earlyadolescence than FEP-patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the notion that ARMSpatients who seek for help can be considered as already highly dysfunctional and in need of treatment, given that they already suffer from multiple mental and functional disturbances. This supports current health care efforts in providing early access to treatment to this population and signals the need to sustain pilot early detection efforts.