A Network Approach to Environmental Impact in Psychotic Disorder: Brief Theoretical Framework

Abstract

The spectrum of psychotic disorder represents a multifactorial and heterogeneous condition and is thought to result from a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. In the current paper, we analyze this interplay using network analysis, which has been recently proposed as a novel psychometric framework for the study of mental disorders. Using general population data, we construct network models for the relation between 3 environmental risk factors (cannabis use, developmental trauma, and urban environment), dimensional measures of psychopathology (anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobic anxiety, somatizations, and hostility), and a composite measure of psychosis expression. Results indicate the existence of specific paths between environmental factors and symptoms. These paths most often involve cannabis use. In addition, the analyses suggest that symptom networks are more strongly connected for people exposed to environmental risk factors, implying that environmental exposure may lead to less resilient symptom networks.

The Study of Psychopathology from the Network Analysis Perspective: A Systematic Review

“…Two of the studies reviewed in this section added adversity variables in the networks [62, 63]. In a sample of general population, developmental trauma was found to be connected to psychotic expression and somatization [62].…”

The Cascade of Stress: A Network Approach to Explore Differential Dynamics in Populations Varying in Risk for Psychosis

“…[15][16][17][18] It posits that mental disorders are best understood as dynamic networks of smaller entities (e.g. symptoms or affective states displayed as nodes) that cluster together and interact with each other over time.…”

Co-occurring internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in childhood and adolescence: a network approach

“…As such, network analysis is flexible and may be used to study psychopathology at various levels of complexity [20]. Indeed, there has been an increase in studies that have examined psychopathology at the construct level [20][21][22][23], and this approach has the advantage of reducing the amount of nodes and edges in a network, in turn simplifying interpretation [24]. As the aim of the present study was to provide a network analogue to p (which has primarily been modelled at the disorder-level), we chose to focus our enquiry at the disorder level (e.g.…”