TY - JOUR

T1 - Relating self-disorders to neurocognitive and psychopathological measures in first-episode schizophrenia

AU - Sandsten, Karl Erik

AU - Wainio-Theberge, Soren

AU - Nordgaard, Julie

AU - Kjaer, Troels Wesenberg

AU - Northoff, Georg

AU - Parnas, Josef

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - AimThe notion of a disturbed self as the core feature of schizophrenia dates back to the founding texts on the illness. Since the development of the psychometric tool for examination of anomalous self-experience (EASE), self-disorders have become accessible to empirical research. Empirical studies have shown that EASE measured self-disorders predict schizophrenia spectrum in prospective studies and consistently show a selective hyper aggregation of self-disorder in schizophrenia and schizotypal disorders. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between self-disorders cognitive deficits and symptoms in schizophrenia.MethodsThirty-five non-acute first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 35 matched healthy controls were evaluated with EASE, cognitive deficits, and symptoms (PANSS positive, negative and general). [Correction added on 28 January 2022, after first online publication: the words, ‘evaluated with’ were missing and have now been added to the preceding sentence.]ResultsThe results show that self-disorders and symptoms are correlated among patients with schizophrenia, but not with cognitive deficits. Moreover, with the exception of attentional deficits, neurocognitive impairment was not significantly higher among patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls.ConclusionsWe argue that this adds support to a view of schizophrenia as being characterized by specific traits of pre-reflective self-disturbance, which are related to the severity of symptoms, whereas neurocognitive impairment reflects a separate or distinct aspect of schizophrenia.

AB - AimThe notion of a disturbed self as the core feature of schizophrenia dates back to the founding texts on the illness. Since the development of the psychometric tool for examination of anomalous self-experience (EASE), self-disorders have become accessible to empirical research. Empirical studies have shown that EASE measured self-disorders predict schizophrenia spectrum in prospective studies and consistently show a selective hyper aggregation of self-disorder in schizophrenia and schizotypal disorders. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between self-disorders cognitive deficits and symptoms in schizophrenia.MethodsThirty-five non-acute first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 35 matched healthy controls were evaluated with EASE, cognitive deficits, and symptoms (PANSS positive, negative and general). [Correction added on 28 January 2022, after first online publication: the words, ‘evaluated with’ were missing and have now been added to the preceding sentence.]ResultsThe results show that self-disorders and symptoms are correlated among patients with schizophrenia, but not with cognitive deficits. Moreover, with the exception of attentional deficits, neurocognitive impairment was not significantly higher among patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls.ConclusionsWe argue that this adds support to a view of schizophrenia as being characterized by specific traits of pre-reflective self-disturbance, which are related to the severity of symptoms, whereas neurocognitive impairment reflects a separate or distinct aspect of schizophrenia.

KW - cognition

KW - neuropsychology

KW - psychopathology

KW - schizophrenia

KW - self-disorder

U2 - 10.1111/eip.13269

DO - 10.1111/eip.13269

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 35081668

VL - 16

SP - 1202

EP - 1210

JO - Early Intervention in Psychiatry

JF - Early Intervention in Psychiatry

SN - 1751-7885

IS - 11

ER -