rural places

I think it is important not to make any fixed generalisations about rural settings being the opposite of the phenomenon described here – but some thoughts of that type did flicker through my mind as a I read this article!!! It tells us:

Teenagers who live in large cities could be at greater risk of having psychotic experiences, according to research examining the impact of urban life on mental health.

The finding ties in with previous studies and suggests that early interventions for young people in deprived urban neighbourhoods could be valuable.

“There is a growing interest in early interventions for psychosis and although it is important to highlight that the vast majority of these adolescents won’t go on to develop a psychotic disorder, early psychotic experiences are shown to be associated with a heightened risk for other mental health problems as well,” said Joanne Newbury, co-author of the research from King’s College London.

The research was published in Schizophrenia Bulletin by teams in the UK and US.

It drew on the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, in which 2,063 18-year-olds in England and Wales were asked whether they had had any psychotic experiences since the age of 12, including delusions, hallucinations or concerns that their food had been poisoned. Just over 30% of the teens reported at least one psychotic experience over the period.

Once factors including family psychiatric history, socioeconomic status and alcohol or cannabis dependence were taken into account, the odds were 43% higher for adolescents living in very urban settings – such as cities like London or Birmingham – than for rural teens.

Further analysis revealed the effect was at least in partly down to low levels of social cohesion, meaning poor relationships between neighbours, and high levels of neighbourhood disorder.

“We found that these factors explained around half of the association, or the effect of urbanicity on psychotic experiences,” said Newbury.