Metacognitive Rating Scale: A Study Applying a Korean Translation to Individuals with Schizophrenia.

Mihwa Han,Kyunghee Lee,Youngjin Heo,Hyunseok Choi,Mijung Kim

doi:10.3390/ijerph18136853

Abstract

Metacognition is a higher-level cognition of identifying one’s own mental status, beliefs, and intentions. This research comprised a survey of 184 people with schizophrenia to verify the reliability of the metacognitive rating scale (MCRS) with the revised and supplemented metacognitions questionnaire (MCQ) to measure the dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs of people with schizophrenia by adding the concepts of anger and anxiety. This study analyzed the data using principal component analysis and the varimax method for exploratory factor analysis. To examine the reliability of the extracted factors, Cronbach’s α was used. According to the results, reliability was ensured for five factors: positive beliefs about worry, negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of worry, cognitive confidence, need for control, and cognitive self-consciousness. The negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of worry and the need for control on anger expression, which were both added in this research, exhibited the highest correlation (r = 0.727). The results suggest that the MCRS is a reliable tool to measure the metacognition of people with schizophrenia.

Highlights

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, for which hallucinations and delusions are key symptoms [1]
As for the level of education, 53.8% of the respondents dropped out of middle school or earlier and 46.2% graduated from middle school or received a higher level of education; the level of education was low overall
In this study of people with schizophrenia, we analyzed the reliability of the metacognitive rating scale (MCRS), which adds anger and anxiety concepts to the metacognitions questionnaire (MCQ) [19], a questionnaire designed to evaluate personal differences in assessing worry, invasive thoughts, and beliefs on cognitive function (Appendix A)

Summary

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, for which hallucinations and delusions are key symptoms [1]. Symptom management is difficult, and social functioning, such as the ability to maintain a job, declines [2,3,4]. The cognitive bias causing, maintaining, or deteriorating the delusion symptom of schizophrenia is revealed as a selective disorder by the distortion of thoughts and handling such as memory accuracy and attention deficit rather than by the lack and limitation of mental ability [5,6]. Metacognition is a higher-order thinking process involving active control over oneself, allowing observation of one’s flow of consciousness and recalling memories. Metacognition means the psychological structure, knowledge, events, and processes related to the control, revision, and interpretation of the thought itself [8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion