For Patients With Schizophrenia, Five Variables Associated With Everyday Functioning

Assessments targeting neurocognition, social cognition, positive symptoms, motivation, and access to resources may help to predict everyday functioning in patients with schizophrenia, suggests astudy published inJAMA Psychiatry.“Schizophrenia is no longer conceptualized as a progressive deteriorating illness,” wrote Armida Mucci, M.D., of the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli in Naples, Italy, and colleagues. “However, although a clinical stability with persistent symptomatic remission is now considered a reali stic outcome for affected people, the level of social, vocational, and everyday life functioning attained by the majority of individuals with schizophrenia is still poor.”Mucci and colleagues analyzed data from 618 clinically stable individuals with schizophrenia living in the community. They were recruited from 24 Italian university psychiatric clinics or mental health departments from March 2016 to December 2017. At both baseline and follow-up after four years, the participants were assessed for numerous illness-related factors (including negative symptoms, depression, neurocognition, social cognition, and psychiatric comorbidities), personal resources (including resilience and engagement with mental health services), context-related factors (including internalized stigma and available incentives such as access to family support or a disability pension), and real-life functioning. Each patient ’s key caregiver was invited to join in the interview. The...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: cognition functioning JAMA Psychiatry motivation schizophrenia Source Type: research