Maryland Psychiatric Research Centre, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Research Department of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine, LWL University Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
Compr Psychiatry. 2014 Jan;55(1):25-32. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2013.10.001. Epub 2013 Oct 10.
Impairments in social functioning commonly seen in schizophrenia are thought to be mediated by deficits in the domains of social cognition. Some previous research has explored how social cognitive skills and psychotic symptoms are associated with social functioning, however these associations are still under debate. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between different domains of social cognition and psychotic symptomatology, and also to look at the relationships with individual subdomains of social functioning within a clinically stable schizophrenia population. 45 outpatients were recruited and symptoms were assessed with the PANSS, and measures of emotion processing, affective and cognitive theory of mind (ToM), mental state reasoning attributional biases, and social functioning were taken. A correlational analysis was performed with the data. Following this, a regression analysis was used to reveal which domains of social cognition best predicted psychotic symptoms. In this stable group of patients, our results support the suggestion of a likely distinction between affective and cognitive components of ToM. The study also demonstrated that ToM and mental state reasoning were the best predictors of psychotic symptoms. Here we reveal that cognitive ToM had the most widespread relationship with social functioning, across multiple subdomains, while only some specific subdomains of social functioning correlated with other domains of social cognition and symptomatology. Further to this, positive symptoms were associated with much fewer subdomains of social functioning than negative and general symptoms. These findings imply that different aspects of social functioning may be served by different domains of social cognition and symptomatology.
精神分裂症中常见的社交功能障碍被认为是由社交认知领域的缺陷引起的。一些先前的研究已经探讨了社交认知技能和精神病症状与社交功能的关系，但这些关系仍存在争议。本研究的主要目的是调查不同领域的社交认知与精神病症状之间的关系，同时还研究了在临床稳定的精神分裂症患者群体中，社交功能的各个子领域与这些关系的联系。招募了 45 名门诊患者，用 PANSS 评估症状，并进行了情绪处理、情感和认知心理理论（ToM）、心理状态推理归因偏差以及社交功能的测量。对数据进行了相关分析。在此之后，进行了回归分析，以揭示哪些社交认知领域最能预测精神病症状。在这个稳定的患者群体中，我们的结果支持了情感和认知 ToM 成分之间可能存在区别的观点。该研究还表明，ToM 和心理状态推理是精神病症状的最佳预测因素。在这里，我们揭示了认知 ToM 与社交功能的多个子领域之间存在最广泛的关系，而只有一些特定的社交功能子领域与其他社交认知和症状领域相关。除此之外，阳性症状与社交功能的子领域相关性比阴性和一般症状要少。这些发现表明，不同方面的社交功能可能由不同的社交认知和症状领域来提供支持。
