Facial emotion recognition impairment is related to disorganisation in multi-episode schizophrenia

Anna Comparelli; Antonella De Carolis; Valentina Corigliano; Giada Trovini; Julia Dehning; Simone Di Pietro; Eleonora De Pisa; Silvana Galderisi; Paolo Girardi

doi:10.1016/j.scog.2014.07.002

Facial emotion recognition impairment is related to disorganisation in multi-episode schizophrenia

Schizophr Res Cogn. 2014 Aug 30;1(2):122-125. doi: 10.1016/j.scog.2014.07.002. eCollection 2014 Jun.

Authors

Anna Comparelli¹, Antonella De Carolis², Valentina Corigliano¹, Giada Trovini¹, Julia Dehning¹, Simone Di Pietro¹, Eleonora De Pisa¹, Silvana Galderisi³, Paolo Girardi¹

Affiliations

¹ NESMOS Department (Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sense Organs) Unit of Psychiatry, Sant'Andrea Hospital, School of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
² NESMOS Department (Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sense Organs) Unit of Neurology, Sant'Andrea Hospital, School of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
³ Department of Mental and Physical Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Naples SUN, Italy.

Abstract

The present investigation explores the relationship between facial emotion recognition (FER) and symptom domains in three groups of schizophrenia spectrum patients (43 ultra-high-risk, 50 first episode and 44 multi-episode patients) in which the existence of FER impairment has already been demonstrated. Regression analysis showed that symptoms and FER impairment are related in multi-episode patients, regardless of the illness duration. We suggest that the link between symptoms and FER impairment is involved in the progression of the disease.

Keywords: Cognition; Disorganisation; Early psychosis; Schizophrenia outcome; Social cognition.