Doxycycline Use in Adolescent Psychiatric Patients and Risk of Schizophrenia: An Emulated Target Trial
Ulla Lång; Johanna Metsälä; Hugh Ramsay; Fiona Boland; Katriina Heikkilä; Anna Pulakka; Anne Lawlor; K. O’Connor · 2025 · American Journal of Psychiatry
WASTE classifies this as Negative / Null Result Report · AI classification, approximate
The study found no significant effect — useful as a negative control or null benchmark for your own design.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: As many as half of individuals who develop psychosis had attended child and adolescent psychiatric services at some stage in childhood, highlighting substantial opportunities for prevention within these services if an effective preventive intervention were identified. The authors hypothesized that adolescent psychiatric patients exposed to doxycycline, an antibiotic with putative neuroprotective properties, would have a lower risk of developing schizophrenia. METHODS: This was an emulated target trial using nationwide Finnish health register data on all individuals born between 1987
Abstract by Ulla Lång; Johanna Metsälä; Hugh Ramsay; Fiona Boland; Katriina Heikkilä; Anna Pulakka; Anne Lawlor; K. O’Connor, American Journal of Psychiatry (2025) — licensed CC BY 4.0.
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Metadata source: OpenAlex · DOI 10.1176/appi.ajp.20240958