Khat Eating And Psychosis

Researchers hypothesized that there is a correlation between khat chewing and a risk for psychosis. Researchers also predicted that there would be a higher prevalence of a psychotic diagnosis among men. For this case-controlled study researchers examined individuals presenting psychosis who used khat matched with a group of controls who also consumed khat. Individuals who presented mental health problems to the point of disability were matched with controls by gender, age, and level of education. This study was conducted in Hargeisa, Somalia where a sample of 612 households with 4,854 persons was randomly selected as representative of the city. The means of random selection was purely efficient as well as complex. Heads of households were interviewed by trained staff posing the question whether or not there were members of the household with mental problems so severe they were unable to contribute to the household in the past four weeks. Researchers found that this was true for 169 cases specifically 137 male cases and 32 female cases. From this a sub sample of 52 was randomly selected to be examined in a clinical interview. The sub sample consisted of 44 males and 8 females. Individuals in the sub sample were matched to controls according to gender, age, and educational level. The controls were subjected to the same clinical interview. Subjecting controls to the same interview as the sub sample assisted in the validity of the study, though the sample taken was quite small especially for the female cases. Interviewers where trained and each individual was screened by demographic information, khat consumption from the week before the interview, and experiences in the civil war. Clinical interviews were conducted and a standard event list taking the number of traumatic events a person experienced was taken into account. Psychotic symptoms were evaluated using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The age when symptoms of psychosis first emerged for the positive

...