Persons with first episode psychosis have distinct profiles of social cognition and metacognition

Marina Verdaguer ,Raquel López-Carrilero ,Alfonso Gutiérrez-Zotes ,Helena García‐Mieres ,Steffen Moritz ,Susana Ochoa ,Luciana Díaz-Cutraro ,Trinidad Pélaez ,Irene Birulés ,Esther Pousa ,Marta Ferrer-Quintero ,Elena Huerta‐Ramos ,Eva Grasa ,Ana Barajas ,Jordi Cid ,Daniel Fernández ,Null Author_Id ,Isabel Ruiz-Delgado ,Julia Sevilla‐Llewellyn‐Jones ,Esther Lorente-Rovira ,María Luisa Barrigón ,Fermín González-Higueras

doi:10.1038/s41537-021-00187-8

Abstract

Subjects with first-episode psychosis experience substantial deficits in social cognition and metacognition. Although previous studies have investigated the role of profiles of individuals in social cognition and metacognition in chronic schizophrenia, profiling subjects with first-episode psychosis in both domains remains to be investigated. We used latent profile analysis to derive profiles of the abilities in 174 persons with first-episode psychosis using the Beck’s Cognitive Insight Scale, the Faces Test, the Hinting Task, the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire, and the Beads Task. Participants received a clinical assessment and a neuropsychological assessment. The best-fitting model was selected according to the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). We assessed the importance of the variables via a classification tree (CART). We derived three clusters with distinct profiles. The first profile (33.3%) comprised individuals with low social cognition. The second profile (60.9%) comprised individuals that had more proneness to present jumping to conclusions. The third profile (5.7%) presented a heterogeneous profile of metacognitive deficits. Persons with lower social cognition presented worse clinical and neuropsychological features than cluster 2 and cluster 3. Cluster 3 presented significantly worst functioning. Our results suggest that individuals with FEP present distinct profiles that concur with specific clinical, neuropsychological, and functional challenges. Each subgroup may benefit from different interventions.

Highlights

People with first-episode psychosis (FEP) experience deficits in social cognition[1] and metacognition[2,3], which compromise their abilities in thinking about their own and others’ mental activities[4].Social cognition refers to a broad area that includes perceiving, interpreting, and processing information for adaptive social interactions[5]
Profile solution Using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), we identified three variable volume, variable shape, equal orientation, and ellipsodial distribution (VEE) distinct profiles of individuals with FEP according to Bayesian information criterion (BIC = −3600.651)
We derived three distinct profiles of individuals with FEP based on social cognition and metacognition measures

Summary

Introduction

People with first-episode psychosis (FEP) experience deficits in social cognition[1] and metacognition[2,3], which compromise their abilities in thinking about their own and others’ mental activities[4]. Social cognition refers to a broad area that includes perceiving, interpreting, and processing information for adaptive social interactions[5]. There is consensus that social cognition is composed of four subdomains[6]: emotional processing refers to the ability to perceive and use emotions. Other metacognitive constructs include cognitive biases, such as the Jumping to Conclusions (JTC) bias, which refers to the tendency of hasty decision-making. Given their role in the etiology and maintenance of psychosis, these have been thoroughly studied[3]

Methods

Results

Conclusion