Sensation/novelty seeking in psychotic disorders: A review of the literature

Table 2 Sensation/novelty seeking and alcohol/substance abuse

Ref.	n	Trait-instrument	Main findings
Van Ammers et al[29]	28 male schizophrenia patients, attending residential and outpatient rehabilitation programs	NS, TPQ	Significant correlation of NS with a history of alcohol/cannabis abuse
Liraud et al[30]	45 non-affective psychotic inpatients 58 inpatients with mood disorders	SS, SSS	High SS was associated with increased risk of substance abuse
Dervaux et al[31]	100 inpatients and outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, 41 with a lifetime history of alcohol/substance abuse	SS, SSS	Higher levels of SS were associated with substance abuse
Kim et al[32]	102 male schizophrenia outpatients 51 abusing	NS, TCI	Dual-diagnosis patients showed greater novelty seeking
Bizzarri et al[33]	47 abusing patients 61 non-abusing patients with schizophrenia spectrum or bipolar disorder or psychotic depression	SS, SCI-SUBS	Abusing patients had higher SS scores
Dervaux et al[34]	46 male abusing schizophrenia patients 64 male non-abusing patients	SS, SSS	Higher SS scores in the abusing group
Dervaux et al[35]	34 abusing schizophrenia patients 66 non-abusing patients	SS, SSS	Higher mean scores on SS in patients with a lifetime history of abuse
Zhornitsky et al[36]	31 abusing schizophrenia patients 39 patients with substance abuse 23 non-abusing schizophrenia patients 25 healthy controls	SS, SSS	SS total score was significantly higher in abusing patients, irrespectively of the diagnosis of schizophrenia

SS: Sensation seeking; NS: Novelty seeking; SSS: Sensation Seeking scale; TPQ: Tridimensional personality questionnaire; TCI: Temperament and character inventory; SCI-SUBS: Structured clinical interview for the spectrum of substance use.