A - 132 Social Cognition Predicts Functional Outcomes in Serious Mental Illness.

Abstract

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are leading causes of functional disability worldwide. Difficulty completing instrumental and more routine activities of daily living is one of the most limiting and overlooked features of these disorders. The current study investigated whether deficits in social cognition are associated with increased functional disability in overall serious mental illness (SMI). Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ; N = 22), bipolar disorder with psychotic features (BP+; N = 20) and without psychotic features (BP-; N = 21), and healthy controls (HC; N = 22) completed The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) to examine emotion identification and social inference, and The University of California, San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA) to assess functional capacity. A mixed model ANOVA was performed to examine group differences and multiple regression was used to determine if social cognition predicted social functioning. The SZ group showed significantly worse UPSA functional performance compared to all other groups. The three diagnostic groups (SZ, BP+, BP-) were merged to yield an overall SMI group (N = 63). Multiple regressions indicated TASIT emotion identification and social inference predicted UPSA functioning in household maintenance, communication, finance management, and planning. Social inference was the strongest predictor of overall UPSA functioning, compared to emotion identification. TASIT scores predicted performance across several domains of functioning in SMI. Since functional outcomes are a strong indicator of clinical recovery throughout the course of SMI, additional research may investigate the role that social cognitive abilities play in this recovery.