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Editorial
August 14, 2019

A Finding of Increased Risk of Nonaffective Psychosis in Refugees That Is Highly Relevant to the Current Worldwide Refugee Crisis

Author Affiliations
  • 1Center for Primary Health Care Research, Department of Clinical Sciences Malmö, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
  • 2Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Department of Population Health, Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York
  • 3Center for Community-Based Healthcare Research and Education, Department of Functional Pathology, School of Medicine, Shimane University, Matsue, Japan
JAMA Psychiatry. 2019;76(11):1118-1119. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.1927

In this issue of JAMA Psychiatry, Brandt et al1 present what is, to my knowledge, the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the risk of nonaffective psychosis in first-generation and second-generation refugees. The nonaffective psychoses include schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders, and schizophreniform disorders (and exclude affective psychoses, such as in depression, mania, and bipolar disorder), and the results showed significant and consistent increases in relative risks among refugees (1.39 [95% CI, 1.23-1.58] and 2.41 [95% CI, 1.51-3.85] compared with nonrefugee migrants and the native population, respectively). The risk of bias of studies was assessed using validated tools, and several sensitivity and additional analyses were performed in which results were robust.

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