Patients with schizophrenia deal with many risk factors that make them more susceptible to infections. However, knowledge about incidence and the nature of infections among people with schizophrenia is scarce.

To investigate the occurrence and risk factors for severe infections in schizophrenia patients.

– to determine incidence rates of infections among young adults with schizophrenia;

– to define risk factors for infections.

Population-based nationwide cohort study with selection of all individuals born in Denmark between 1975–1990 and follow-up period from 1995–2013 was conducted. Data from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register and the Danish National Hospital Registry were used. A Poisson regression was chosen to estimate incidence rate ratios of infections and to explore the associations of different risk factors like sex, age, substance abuse and medical co-morbidity with the rates of infections.

922,564 individuals born between 1975–1990 were included in the study. Overall, 3520 women and 5479 men were identified with schizophrenia. In percentages, 36% with schizophrenia had infectious diseases compared to 25% of background population. Some of severe infections like HIV (0.23% vs 0.05%), sepsis (0.72% vs 0.27%), hepatitis (1.4% vs 0.22%) skin infections (12% vs 6.2%)and tuberculosis (0.12% vs 0.06%) were highly increased in persons with schizophrenia, whereas smaller differences were found regarding CNS infections (0.5% vs 0.4%) and gastrointestinal infections (8.7% vs 6.2%).

The preliminary data results suggest, that individuals with schizophrenia have higher prevalence of all types of severe infectious compared to the background population.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.