Improving the ability of people with schizophrenia to perform tasks that are important to daily functioning is a key component for any therapeutic intervention, a cross-sectional study of 740 patients shows.
“Our study confirms that [the four domains of] social cognition, neurocognition, resilience, and real-life functioning represent robust and independent constructs,” wrote Silvana Galderisi, MD, and her associates. The report was published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Dr. Galderisi and her associates recruited community-dwelling patients with schizophrenia as defined in the DSM-IV over an 18-month period. The patients were stabilized on antipsychotics and were seen in the outpatient units of 26 psychiatric clinics and/or mental health departments in Italy.
Several measures were administered, including the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS), the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).