Self-assessment of social cognition in a sample of Lebanese in-patients with schizophrenia

Chadia Haddad (1, 2, 3, 4) , Pascale Salameh (2, 5) , Souheil Hallit (2, 5) , Hala Sacre (2) , Jean-Pierre Clément (1, 4) , Benjamin Calvet (1, 4)

1 NET - Neuroépidémiologie Tropicale
2 INSPECT-LB - Institut National de Santé Publique, Epidémiologie Clinique et Toxicologie [Beyrouth, Liban]
3 Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross [Jal Eddib, Liban]
4 Pôle Universitaire d’Addictologie en Limousin
5 Lebanese University Faculty of Pharmacy, Hadath, Lebanon; Institut National de Santé Publique, Epidémiologie Clinique et Toxicologie - Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut-Lebanon; University of Nicosia Medical School, Nicosia, Cyprus.

Objective: The primary objective was to evaluate social cognitive complaints in a sample of chronic in-patients with schizophrenia and compare it to healthy controls. The secondary objective was to explore factors related to social cognitive complaints in these patients, such as neurocognition, clinical symptoms, depression, and insight. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted between July 2019 and March 2020 at the Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross (HPC)-Lebanon enrolled 120 chronic in-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders and 60 healthy controls. The Self-Assessment of Social Cognition Impairments (ACSo) scale was used to assess social cognitive complaints. Results: A significant difference was found between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls in all social cognitive complaints: theory of mind complaint, attributional biases complaint, emotional processes complaint, and social perception and knowledge complaint (p < 0.001 for all). All objective cognitive disorders were significantly associated with social cognitive complaints except for attention and speed of information processing. Higher verbal memory and verbal fluency were significantly associated with lower emotional processes complaint scores. The results of the multivariate analysis showed that a higher cognition (Beta = -0.08, p = 0.001) was significantly associated with a lower social cognitive complaint, contrary a higher depression (Beta = 0.38, p = 0.04) was significantly associated with a higher social cognitive complaint, in particular attributional biases complaints. Conclusion: This study showed that patients with schizophrenia have complaints about their social cognition. It could also demonstrate that subjective social cognitive complaints are correlated with depressive symptoms and objective cognitive deficits among these patients.

Mots clés: AB attributional bias; ACSo; Self-Assessment of Social Cognition Impairments; ADS; Anticholinergic Drug Scale; BACS; Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia; CDSS; Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia; Cognitive complaint; DSM; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; EP; emotional processing; HPC; Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross; MANCOVA; multivariate analysis of covariance; Neurocognition; PANSS; Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale; SASCCS; Self-Assessment Scale of Cognitive Complaints in Schizophrenia; SP; social perception and knowledge; SPSS; Statistical Package for Social Sciences; Schizophrenia; Social cognition; TOM; theory of mind

Domaines: Santé publique et épidémiologie

Chadia Haddad, Pascale Salameh, Souheil Hallit, Hala Sacre, Jean-Pierre Clément, et al.. Self-assessment of social cognition in a sample of Lebanese in-patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 2021, 26, pp.100207. ⟨10.1016/j.scog.2021.100207⟩. ⟨hal-03572390⟩