Social isolation and psychosis: an investigation of social interactions and paranoia in daily life

Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2021 Jun 15. doi: 10.1007/s00406-021-01278-4. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTSocial isolation has been suggested to foster paranoia. Here we investigate whether social company (i.e., being alone vs. not) and its nature (i.e., stranger/distant vs. familiar other) affects paranoia differently depending on psychosis risk. Social interactions and paranoid thinking in daily life were investigated in 29 patients with clinically stable non-affective psychotic disorders, 20 first-degree relatives, and 26 controls (n = 75), using the experience sampling method (ESM). ESM was completed up to ten times daily for 1 week. Patients experienced marginally greater paranoia than relatives [b = 0.47, p = 0.08, 95% CI (- 0.06, 1.0)] and significantly greater paranoia than controls [b = 0.55, p = 0.03, 95% CI (0.5, 1.0)], but controls and relatives did not differ [b = 0.07, p = 0.78, 95% CI (- 0.47, 0.61)]. Patients were more often alone [68.5% vs. 44.8% and 56.2%, respectively, p = 0.057] and experienced greater paranoia when alone than when in company [b = 0.11, p = 0.016, 95% CI (0.02, 0.19)]. In relatives this was reversed [b = - 0.17, p < 0.001, 95% CI (- 0.28, - 0.07)] and in controls non-significant [b = - 0.02, p = 0.67, 95% CI (- 0.09, 0.06)]. The time-lagged association between being in social company and subsequent paranoia was non-significant and paranoia did not predict the likelihood of being in social company over time (both p's = 0.68). All gr...

Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - June 15, 2021 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Anne-Kathrin J Fett Esther Hanssen Marlie Eemers Emmanuelle Peters Sukhi S Shergill Source Type: research