Self-reported
interpersonal functioning is determined by current level of depression, both in
patients with schizophrenia and in healthy control individuals. In a recent study
published in Psychiatry Research, investigators
sought to examine depression, sex, and schizophrenia as predictors of
self-reported everyday functioning, based on data from the final phase of the
Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation Study (SCOPE).
Lisa Oliveri, MD, from the
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Miller School of Medicine,
University of Miami, Florida, and colleagues collected data from 3 sites
located in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.
A total of 372 participants were enrolled in the current study, including 218 stable outpatients diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 154 healthy control individuals (63% men). All the participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory, second edition. The participants also completed the Observable Social Cognition Rating Scale (OSCARS), which includes 8 items designed to evaluate social cognition, and the 31-item Specific Levels of Functioning Scale (SLOP).
Overall, individuals with schizophrenia reported significantly higher levels of depression (P <.001), poorer social functioning (P <.001), and poorer everyday social functioning (P <.001). Furthermore, women reported significantly more depression (P <.001) and poorer social cognitive ability than men. Regarding self-reported social functioning, the sex difference did not approach statistical significance (P =.98), with identical mean scores reported.
In linear regression
analyses, depression (P <.001) and
social cognition (P =.004), but not
diagnosis or sex, were significant predictors of self-reported everyday
functioning. In addition, in forced entry hierarchical analyses, depression
accounted for 16% and 14% of the variance of social functioning and social
cognitive ability scores, respectively. Sex and diagnosis, in contrast,
accounted for 8% and 24% of the variation, respectively.
The investigators
concluded that self-reported interpersonal functioning is determined by an
individual’s current level of depression. However, the results may be limited
by the low levels of depression in the healthy control group and the subjective
self-report measures used.
Prior research in healthy
control individuals has tied mild dysthymia to accurate self-assessment of
functioning. Future studies must tease out differences between subjective views
and objective evaluations of social and cognitive functioning.
Disclosures: multiple study authors reported links to the pharmaceutical
industry. See the original paper for a full list of declarations of competing
interest.
Reference
Oliveri LN, Awerbuch AW, Jarskog LF, Penn DL, Pinkham A, Harvey PD. Depression predicts self assessment of social function in both patients with schizophrenia and healthy people [published online November 6, 2019]. Psychiatry Res. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112681
