We conducted a nested case-control study on a Danish population-based sample born after 1981 comprising of 1692 cases diagnosed with schizophrenia between 1994 and 2008 and 1724 matched controls. All individuals were linked utilizing nationwide population-based registers with virtually complete registration of all hospital contacts for infections. PRSs were calculated using discovery effect size estimates weights from an independent meta-analysis (34,600 cases and 45,968 control individuals).
A prior hospital contact with infection had occurred in 41% of the individuals with schizophrenia and increased the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of schizophrenia by 1.43 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.22–1.67). Adding PRS, which was robustly associated with schizophrenia (by an IRR of 1.46 [95% CI = 1.34–1.60] per standard deviation of the score), did not alter the association with infections and the increased risk of schizophrenia remained (IRR = 1.41; 95% CI = 1.20–1.66). Furthermore, there were no interactions between PRS and infections on the risk of developing schizophrenia (p = .554). Neither did PRS affect the risk of acquiring infections among patients with schizophrenia (odds ratio = 1.00; 95% CI = 0.89–1.12) nor among controls (odds ratio = 1.09; 95% CI: 0.96–1.24).
PRS and a history of infections have independent effects on the risk for schizophrenia, and the common genetic risk measured by PRS did not account for the association with infection in this sample.