Badcock Johanna C, Barkus Emma, Cohen Alex S, Bucks Romola, Badcock David R
Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, The University of Western Australia Perth, WA, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of Wollongong Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Front Psychol. 2016 Jul 7;7:1018. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01018. eCollection 2016.
Loneliness is common in youth and associated with a significantly increased risk of psychological disorders. Although loneliness is strongly associated with psychosis, its relationship with psychosis proneness is unclear. Our aim in this paper was to test the hypothesis that loneliness and schizotypal traits, conveying risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, are similar but separate constructs. Pooling data from two non-clinical student samples (N = 551) we modeled the structure of the relationship between loneliness and trait schizotypy. Loneliness was assessed with the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (UCLA-3), whilst negative (Social Anhedonia) and positive (Perceptual Aberrations) schizotypal traits were assessed with the Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales-Brief (WSS-B). Fit statistics indicated that the best fitting model of UCLA-3 scores comprises three correlated factors (Isolation, Related Connectedness, and Collective Connectedness), consistent with previous reports. Fit statistics for a two factor model of positive and negative schizotypy were excellent. Next, bi-factor analysis was used to model a general psychopatholgy factor (p) across the three loneliness factors and separate negative and positive schizotypy traits. The results showed that all items (except 1) co-loaded on p. However, with the influence of p removed, additional variance remained within separate sub-factors, indicating that loneliness and negative and positive trait schizotypy are distinct and separable constructs. Similarly, once shared variance with p was removed, correlations between sub-factors of loneliness and schizotypal traits were non-significant. These findings have important clinical implications since they suggest that loneliness should not be conflated with the expression of schizotypy. Rather, loneliness needs to be specifically targeted for assessment and treatment in youth at risk for psychosis.
孤独在青少年中很常见，并且与心理障碍风险的显著增加有关。尽管孤独与精神病密切相关，但其与精神病倾向的关系尚不清楚。本文的目的是检验这样一个假设，即孤独和传达精神分裂症谱系障碍风险的分裂型特质是相似但又相互独立的结构。我们汇总了两个非临床学生样本（N = 551）的数据，对孤独与特质分裂型之间关系的结构进行了建模。孤独感通过加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校孤独量表（UCLA - 3）进行评估，而消极（社交快感缺失）和积极（感知异常）分裂型特质则通过威斯康星分裂型量表简版（WSS - B）进行评估。拟合统计表明，UCLA - 3得分的最佳拟合模型包含三个相关因素（孤立、关系连接性和集体连接性），这与之前的报告一致。正负分裂型的双因素模型的拟合统计结果非常好。接下来，采用双因素分析对跨越三个孤独因素以及单独的消极和积极分裂型特质的一般精神病理学因素（p）进行建模。结果显示，所有项目（除一项外）均共同加载于p。然而，在去除p的影响后，各个子因素中仍存在额外的方差，这表明孤独以及消极和积极特质分裂型是不同且可分离的结构。同样，一旦去除与p的共同方差，孤独子因素与分裂型特质之间的相关性就不显著了。这些发现具有重要的临床意义，因为它们表明孤独不应与分裂型特质的表现混为一谈。相反，对于有精神病风险的青少年，需要专门针对孤独进行评估和治疗。
