Autism symptoms, depression, and active social avoidance in schizophrenia: Association with self-reports and informant assessments of everyday functioning

Publication date: Available online 10 May 2019Source: Journal of Psychiatric ResearchAuthor(s): Philip D. Harvey, Elizabeth Deckler, Mackenzie T. Jones, L. Fredrik Jarskog, David L. Penn, Amy E. PinkhamAbstractAutistic traits are a feature of schizophrenia and has been found to impair social functioning and social cognition. Other influences on social outcomes in schizophrenia include depression and social avoidance. However, challenges in self-assessment of abilities and functioning (i.e., introspective accuracy) and self-assessment bias also contribute to disability. Depression has been studied for its association with introspective accuracy and bias, but autistic traits have not. Participants were 177 patients with schizophrenia who self-reported their everyday functioning and social cognitive ability as well as their depression. All were rated with the PANSS and a separate rater generated all-sources ratings of everyday functioning and social cognitive ability. Correlations between self-reported everyday functioning and social cognitive ability, ratings of everyday functioning and social cognitive ability, and the discrepancies between those ratings were examined for correlations with depression, autistic features and social avoidance. Accuracy was defined by the absolute value of the difference between self-reports and all-sources ratings and bias was defined by the direction of discrepancy (positive vs. negative). There was a statistically significant difference between...
Source: Journal of Psychiatric Research - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research