Other Topics

Prevalence of alcohol (Koskinen et al. 2009) and cannabis (Koskinen et al. 2010) use disorder comorbidity in schizophrenia patients.

In the study of prevalence of alcohol use disorders in schizophrenia we found 60 studies published in 1996-2008; the median of current prevalence was 9.4% (18 studies) and median of lifetime prevalence 20.6% (47 studies) (Koskinen et al. 2009). When contrasted the result to the most recent review there might be a descending trend in alcohol use disorder prevalence in schizophrenia patients. These results can be compared to our study on cannabis use disorder studies on the same period (Koskinen et al. 2010). The median current prevalence of cannabis used disorders was 16.0% (10 studies) and the median lifetime rate was 27.1% (28 studies). Cannabis use disorders were especially common in younger and first-episode patient samples as well as in samples with a high proportion of males.

Koskinen J, Löhönen J, Koponen H, Isohanni M, Miettunen J. Prevalence of alcohol use disorders in schizophrenic psychoses – A systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2009;120:85-96.

Koskinen J, Löhönen J, Koponen H, Isohanni M, Miettunen J. Rate of cannabis use disorders in clinical samples of patients with schizophrenia: A meta-analysis. Schizophr Bull  2010; 36: 1115-30.

Meta-analyses on prevalence, incidence, and mortality:

McGrath J, Saha S, Welham J, El Saadi O, MacCauley C, Chant D. A systematic review of the incidence of schizophrenia: the distribution of rates and the influence of sex, urbanicity, migrant status and methodology. BMC Med 2004;2:13.

Saha S, Barendregt JJ, Vos T, Whiteford H, McGrath J. Modelling disease frequency measures in schizophrenia epidemiology. Schizophr Res 2008;104:246-54.

Saha S, Chant DC, Welham JL, McGrath JJ. The incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia varies with latitude. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2006;114:36-9.

Saha S, Welham J, Chant D, McGrath J. Incidence of schizophrenia does not vary with economic status of the country: evidence from a systematic review. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 2006;41:338-40.

Saha S, Chant D, Welham J, McGrath J. A systematic review of the prevalence of schizophrenia. PLoS Med 2005;2:e141.