Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia Tied to Health-Related Quality of Life

However, no correlation seen for cognitive deficits

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Feb. 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Negative symptoms of schizophrenia strongly correlate with health-related quality of life (HRQoL), according to a study published online Jan. 23 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Jonas Montvidas, M.D., from the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences in Kaunas, and colleagues assessed whether negative symptoms and cognitive deficits of schizophrenia correlate and can predict HRQoL. The analysis included 67 participants diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to evaluate participants, who were then asked to complete the Self-evaluation of Negative Symptoms scale (SNS) and the Medical Outcomes Short Form Survey (SF-36).

The researchers found that HRQoL was significantly associated with negative symptoms; however, it was not associated with cognitive deficits. The abulia subscore of the SNS scale showed the most significant predictive potential of HRQoL. The SNS-Avolition score of 3.5 predicted that SF-36-General Health would be less than 50 with a sensitivity and specificity of 79.5 and 75 percent, respectively. An SNS-Total Score of 20.5 predicted that SF-36-Mental Health would be less than 50 with a sensitivity and specificity of 70 and 73 percent, respectively.

“We may conclude that HRQoL correlated significantly with negative symptoms but did not correlate with cognitive deficits of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Negative symptoms evaluated with both ‘first generation’ observer-rated and ‘second generation’ self-assessment tools correlated significantly with HRQoL,” the authors write. “A reduction of HRQoL can be predicted with SNS, especially the avolition subscore of SNS, which warrants further investigation of SNS as a screening tool for the quality of life of patients with schizophrenia.”