Impact of age of onset of psychosis and engagement in higher education on duration of untreated psychosis

Abstract

Background: The average age of onset of psychosis coincides with the age of college enrollment. Little is known about the impact of educational engagement on DUP in a college-aged population.Aims: To determine DUP, and the impact of educational engagement, for college-aged participants of the RAISE study (n = 404).Method: We conducted secondary data analyses on the publicly available RAISE dataset. Subsamples were analyzed to determine the impact of age and educational engagement on DUP.Results: DUP was significantly shorter (p < 0.02) for participants who were college-aged (18–22 years, n = 44) and engaged in post-secondary education (median = 12 weeks, mean = 29 weeks) compared with participants who were college-aged and not engaged in higher education (n = 92, median = 29 weeks, mean = 44 weeks).Conclusions: Educational engagement appears to be associated with a shorter DUP. This may be partially explained by the presence of on-site wellness centers in college settings. However, even among young people who engaged in post-secondary education DUP was still at, or beyond, the upper limit of WHO recommendations in this group. Future research exploring how colleges could improve their capacity to detect and refer at risk students for treatment at an earlier stage is recommended.