Abstract
BackgroundPsychosocial dysfunction is one of schizophrenia’s core features, often leading to a deprecation of independent living and significant failure to maintain a competent quality of life. Cognitive and occupational performance as well as psychosocial functioning is moreover recognized as determinants of treatment response. Therefore, the elaboration of measures regarding social performance besides scales that assess psychopathology is essential. The Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scale has been found to be as much valid as reliable for assessing social functioning in the acute and stable stage of schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to estimate the correlation between the PSP and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) (convergent validity) in patients with schizophrenia during routine clinical practice.MethodsA longitudinal study with a six-month follow-up is presented. Correlation between the PSP scale and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was conducted in a Greek sample of 2010 patients with schizophrenia in outpatient setting in two successive visits. PANSS and PSP scales were used for the assessment of psychopathological symptoms and social and personal functioning.ResultsThe PSP subscales scores were well correlated with each other with Spearman correlation coefficients (r) ranging from 0.56 to 0.76 on both visits in three out of the four main areas, whereas in the category of “disturbing and aggressive behavior” the correlations were lower but still significant. Furthermore, total PSP score showed high association to PANSS total score in the first (r = -0.59) as well as in the second visit (r = -0.50). Regression analysis showed that one point decrease of PANSS’s total score is associated with a 0.42 points increase on the PSP scale. PSP and PANSS scales exhibited high convergent validity.ConclusionsThe PSP could provide additional valuable information in the assessment of schizophrenia related social functioning and treatment response.
Highlights
Psychosocial dysfunction is one of schizophrenia’s core features, often leading to a deprecation of independent living and significant failure to maintain a competent quality of life
The aim of this study was to estimate the correlation between the Personal and Social Performance (PSP) and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) in a Greek sample of patients with schizophrenia under heterogeneous therapeutic strategies in routine clinical practice
Course of the clinical symptoms based on the PANSS and PSP scales The course of the disease according to PANSS scale, within six months, showed significant improvement in most parameters
Summary
Psychosocial dysfunction is one of schizophrenia’s core features, often leading to a deprecation of independent living and significant failure to maintain a competent quality of life. Cognitive and occupational performance as well as psychosocial functioning is recognized as determinants of treatment response. The Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scale has been found to be as much valid as reliable for assessing social functioning in the acute and stable stage of schizophrenia. Nowadays cognitive and occupational performance as well as psychosocial functioning is being recognized as determinants of treatment response [5]. The assessment of personal and social functioning remains an area of controversy and uncertainty [5,15] and scales used for assessing social functioning often overlap clinical psychopathology [10], while this devastating clinical, social and economic effect as well as the introduction of new medical, psychological and social strategies in therapeutics in recent years, requires a new approach of the current evaluation of schizophrenia’s features according to psychopathology and for the patients’ quality of life and social functioning [16]
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