Cardiovascular disease markers in schizophrenia during negative symptoms and remission periods

Objectives: This study aims to investigate cardiovascular disease markers in patients with schizophrenia and to contribute to the early indication of asymptomatic cardiovascular diseases in these patients. In our study, there are three groups: schizophrenia with negative symptoms (SCH-N), schizophrenia in remission (SCH-R), and a healthy control group (HC). In these groups, there were compared parameters such as lipid panel, Atherogenic Index (AIP), Triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, Castelli Risk Index-1 (CRI-I), Castelli Risk Index-2 (CRI-II), and Atherogenic Coefficient (AC), which are associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease. Methods: The participants of the study were from the HC group and schizophrenia patients aged between 18 and 65 who were followed up at the Psychiatry Clinic of Karaman Hospital. This cross-sectional case-control study consists of the SCH-N (n:20), the SCH-R (n:23), and the HC (n:21) groups. Those with cardiovascular, endocrine, and inflammatory diseases, those with alcohol and substance addiction, those using drugs other than psychiatric drugs, and those lacking informed consent were excluded from the study. Patients in active psychotic episodes were also excluded from the study due to communication difficulties. All data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 package program in a computer environment. The conformity of continuous data to normal distribution was evaluated with normality test value, q-q plot, skewness, and kurtosis. For significant results in the ANOVA test, pairwise comparisons were conducted using the post hoc Bonferroni correction when variances were homogeneously distributed. Similarly, for significant results in the Kruskal-Wallis Test, pairwise comparisons were performed using the Dunn-Bonferroni test. In this study, values less than p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: When all groups were compared, the increase in the TGs, TyG index, AIP, CRI-I, CRI-II, and AC values in the SCH-R group compared to the HC group was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p = 0.015, p < 0.001; sequentially). Conclusions: This study revealed that cardiovascular risk markers in schizophrenia patients showed significant differences. In particular, the elevation in parameters such as TGs, TyG index, AIP, CRI-I, CRI-II, and AC indicates that schizophrenia patients have an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, it is recommended that schizophrenia patients be closely monitored for cardiovascular risk factors and to intervene early.