Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Mar 22, 2015; 5(1): 79-87
Published online Mar 22, 2015. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v5.i1.79
Sensation/novelty seeking in psychotic disorders: A review of the literature
Vaios Peritogiannis
Vaios Peritogiannis, Private Practice Psychiatrist, 45444 Ioannina, Greece
Author contributions: Peritogiannis V solely contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Vaios Peritogiannis, MD, MSc, PhD, Private Practice Psychiatrist, 1 Moulaimidou Str, 45444 Ioannina, Greece. vaios.peritogiannis@medai.gr
Telephone: +30-26-51021227 Fax: +30-26-51021227
Received: September 28, 2014
Peer-review started: September 29, 2014
First decision: December 17, 2014
Revised: December 31, 2014
Accepted: January 15, 2015
Article in press: January 19, 2015
Published online: March 22, 2015
Abstract

The evaluation of personality traits is important for the better understanding of the person suffering from psychosis and for treatment individualization. However literature on patients’ personality and character in such disorders is limited. The aim of this review was to summarize the literature on sensation/novelty seeking (SNS), a trait which is biologically based and highly heritable and is associated with dopamine activity, and refers to a person’s tendency to seek varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences. A total of 38 studies were included in this review, involving 2808 patients and 2039 healthy controls. There is consistent evidence that this trait is independently associated with alcohol and substance abuse in patients with schizophrenia and related disorders. The estimation of SNS would help clinicians to identify patients at risk for abuse. There is also some evidence that higher SNS levels may relate to medication non-adherence and seem to increase the risk of patients’ aggressive and violent behavior, but studies are scarce. SNS was found not to be related to suicidality, whereas in the fields of patients’ quality of life and psychopathology results are contradictory, but most studies show no possible association. Several studies suggest that SNS is lower in psychotic patients compared to controls, whereas most yield no differences. The evidence for this trait as a potential endophenotype of schizophrenia is weak. SNS may be implicated in psychotic disorders’ course and prognosis in several ways and should be always inquired for. This trait can be reliably measured with the use of easily applicable self-rated instruments, and patients’ accounts could inform clinicians when planning management and delivering individualized treatment.

Keywords: Novelty seeking, Personality, Psychosis, Sensation seeking, Schizophrenia, Substance abuse

Core tip: This review summarizes current research on the personality trait sensation/novelty seeking (SNS) in psychotic disorders. There is an emerging literature on SNS in psychotic patients, suggesting that this trait is associated with patients’ alcohol and substance misuse. Some evidence suggests that SNS may be related to medication non-adherence and aggressive behavior, whereas data on other illness dimensions, such as quality of life and psychopathology are scarce and controversial. In general, patients with psychotic disorders appear to have lower SNS levels than healthy controls, but abusing patients, who probably have high SNS levels are often excluded from research.