The Social Cognition Impairments of People with Schizophrenia and Affective Spectrum Disorders
The article presents the results of the research of capacity for mentalization and empathy in patients belonging to the two spectra of mental pathology - schizophrenic and affective. A total of 199 patients with schizophrenia and affective spectrum disorders were surveyed (97 men, and 102 women, mean age - 33,5 ± 10,1 years): 52 patients with anxiety and depressive disorders, 25 patients with bipolar disorder, 35 patients with schizoaffective disorder and 87 patients with paranoid schizophrenia. It was also examined the group of 79 healthy people. To assess the ability of mentalization the “Reading the mind in the Eyes” Test developed by S. Baron-Cohen was used. To investigate the capacity for empathy it was used the questionnaire “Interpersonal Reactivity Index”, developed by M. Davis. To measure the severity of clinical symptoms we have used the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised Questionnaire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. It was found that performance of the capacity for mentalization in patients with schizophrenia and affective disorders spectra represents a continuum: the capacity for mentalization rises from patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders to patients with affective spectrum disorders and further to the healthy subjects. The analysis of empathic ability in patients with affective disorders and schizophrenia spectrum suggests an inadequate self-assessment of the ability to perspective taking and position of empathic concern. At the same time, patients present a higher level of empathic distress compared with the healthy subjects.