Aim: Research has suggested an association between obstetric complications and schizophrenia.
Methods: In this study data based on the obstetric birth case-notes of adolescent patients with diagnosed schizophrenia were compared to those of normal "healthy" same-aged control subjects.
Results: Complications involving a clear damaging potential (Level > 4 in the McNeil-Sjöström Scale) were seen significantly more often among cases than control subjects: 7% vs 2%, Fisher's exact test p < 0.04, odds ratio 4, 95%, CI: 1.048-15.26.
Discussion: Brain-damaging due to obstetric complications would seem to be a possible antecedent to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Moreover, results support the evidence that obstetric adversity exerts an independent influence on the age at first presentation with schizophrenia. This finding suggests the existence of a causal relationship between obstetric adversity and age at onset of schizophrenia even if the small samples size limits the power of this study.