Schizotypal traits and depressive symptoms in nonclinical adolescents Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero, Mercedes Paino, Serafín Lemos-Giráldez ⁎ , José Muñiz Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain Abstract The main goal of this study was to examine the relationship between schizotypal personality traits and depressive symptoms in a sample of nonclinical adolescents. The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (J Personal Disord 1995;9:346-355) and the Reynolds Depression Adolescent Scale (Reynolds WM. Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale. Professional Manual. Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc; 1987) were administered. The sample was made up of 1384 adolescents (48.6% boys), with a mean (SD) age of 15.7 (1.0) years. The results of the study indicate a high degree of overlap between schizotypal experiences and depressive symptoms at a nonclinical level. Canonical correlation between the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief scales and the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale scales was 0.63, which represents 39.69% of the associated variance between the 2 sets of variables. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 4-dimensional model made up of the Positive, Interpersonal, Disorganized, and Depressive dimensions was that which best fit the data. Moreover, the dimensional structure underlying the schizotypal traits and depressive symptoms was found to be invariant across sex and age. These findings converge with data found in previous studies of both patients with schizophrenia and nonclinical adults and suggest that affective dysregulation is also present at a subclinical level. Future research should continue to make progress in the early detection of participants at risk of developing schizophrenia-spectrum disorders based on the early identification of these types of subclinical traits. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Adolescence seems to be a critical period for the emergence of psychotic [1,2] and depressive symptoms [3,4]. Furthermore, the presence of subclinical symptoms at early ages predicts the possible development of a clinical syndrome in adulthood [5-8]. For example, children and adolescents with high scores on schizotypal self-reports or who report psychotic-like experiences are at heightened risk for subsequent development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders [5,6,9]. Likewise, the presence of subclinical depressive symptoms in children and adolescents has been associated with greater risk of developing a depressive disorder [7,8,10]. Schizotypal personality is a complex construct that has been associated with schizophrenia at different levels (eg, historical, conceptual, genetic, neurochemical, anatomical, and neurocognitive) [11]. The schizotypal organization of personality can be seen as an attenuated form of schizo- phrenia, constituting a premorbid or prodromal phase of that disorder [11], or as an organization of personality represent- ing genetic vulnerability to psychosis [12]. Likewise, it is considered to involve a set of traits that is distributed within the general population along a dynamic continuum, with the clinical entity (psychosis) at the most extreme pole [13]. Variations regarding the position that a person occupies along this continuum would also be indicative of greater or less psychosis proneness. Moreover, this vulnerability would manifest itself in the form of diverse subtle alterations, qualitatively similar though quantitatively less severe than those found in patients with schizophrenia, at a cognitive, behavioural, affective, emotional, psychophysiological, and/ or neurobiochemical level [11,14-19]. Exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) suggest that the schizotypal personality is a multidimensional construct, basically involving 3 (Cognitive-Perceptual, Interpersonal, and Disorganized) [20-23] or 4 (Cognitive- Perceptual, Interpersonal, Disorganized, and Paranoid) dimensions [24,25]. There is no doubt that affective alteration is a phenom- enon characteristic of patients with nonaffective psychosis Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Comprehensive Psychiatry 52 (2011) 293 – 300 www.elsevier.com/locate/comppsych ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: slemos@uniovi.es (S. Lemos-Giráldez). 0010-440X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2010.07.001