Social cognition in “pure” delusional disorder

Abstract

Introduction. Delusional disorders are characterised by monothematic, “encapsulated” and incorrigible false beliefs and misinterpretations of social signals. Due to the rarity of cases with “pure” delusional disorder (DD) in clinical settings most studies of social cognition in delusional patients have focused on patients with paranoid schizophrenia. In the present study we sought to examine emotion recognition, theory of mind abilities, and pragmatic language comprehension in patients with delusional disorder. Methods. Social cognition was assessed in 21 patients recruited over a 3‐year period who were diagnosed with delusional disorder, paranoid, erotomanic, or jealous type. In addition to an emotion recognition and theory of mind test battery, we included a novel German Proverb Test, which has been found indicative of subtle theory of mind deficits in schizophrenic patients. Executive functioning was assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Psychopathology was measured using the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS). Patients' task performance was compared to a group of 22 healthy control persons paralleled for verbal intelligence, education, and age. Results. Patients with DD made significantly more perseverative errors in the WCST, they performed more poorly on the theory of mind tasks and the proverb test, but were unimpaired in basic emotion recognition abilities relative to controls. When executive functioning was co‐varied out, the group differences in theory of mind disappeared, whereas the greater propensity of patients with DD to interpret proverbs literally remained significant. Conclusions. In “pure” DD the basic social cognitive abilities appear to be preserved. Difficulties in metaphorical speech comprehension and executive functioning could, however, indicate more subtle social cognitive deficits in these patients.