Nonaffective Psychosis After Prenatal Exposure to Rubella

OBJECTIVE: The authors’ goal was to investigate the suggestion of previous investigations that prenatal viral exposures might increase the later risk of psychotic disorders. METHOD: They conducted a follow-up study in young adulthood of a birth cohort that was previously documented, by clinical examination and serological testing, to have in utero rubella exposure during the 1964 rubella epidemic. Data were also obtained from an unexposed birth cohort and from the Epidemiological Catchment Area survey. Young adult subjects were administered a standard psychiatric diagnostic interview. The authors compared the proportions of subjects with nonaffective psychosis in the exposed and unexposed cohorts. RESULTS: The rubella-exposed subjects, most of whom were exposed in the first trimester, demonstrated a substantially greater risk for nonaffective psychosis than the subjects who were not exposed to rubella (relative risk=5.2). CONCLUSIONS: There is an association between clinically and serologically diagnosed prenatal viral infection and nonaffective psychosis in adulthood.