ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the term "psychosis proneness" and review assessment literature Germane to this concept. It also focuses on the clinical syndromes associated with risk for converting to psychosis. The relationship between psychosis proneness and clinical psychosis is complex, the concept of proneness fits with contemporary models of a continuum or spectrum of psychotic experiences varying in degree of symptom severity. The chapter also discusses the demographic, environmental, and contextual risk factors associated with the onset of psychosis. Environmental factors such as poverty, drug abuse, immigrant status, social adversity, and isolation and urbanization were found to be risk factors associated with schizophrenia. The first European scale for predicting schizophrenia from prodromal features was developed in the 1960s. Psychosis proneness, schizotypy, psychoticism, psychosis prodrome, ultra-high-risk, psychosis risk and attenuated psychosis syndromes are overlapping terms describing vulnerable individuals who share certain features that may place them at risk for psychosis.
