Is it still correct to differentiate between early and very early onset psychosis?

Abstract

Objective: It remains unclear whether very early onset psychosis (VEOP; ≤ 12 years of age) and early onset psychosis (EOP; onset 13-17 years of age) are homogeneous in their clinical presentation. We investigated the predictive value of age of psychosis onset for severity, functioning and demographic variation by: 1) comparing groups based on traditional cut-offs for age of psychosis onset, and 2) using receiver operating characteristic (ROC)-curve calculations, without a priori age of onset cut-offs. Method: Participants were 88 (45 female, 43 male) children and adolescents with a recent onset of psychosis (age range = 6.7-17.5 years; M = 13.74, SD = 2.37). Results: The VEOP group had signi..