Valoración de la cognición social en esquizofrenia a través del test de la mirada. Implicaciones para la rehabilitación

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a serious and chronic mental illness that has effect on cognitive and social functioning of a person who suffers it. Recent research points out that social cognition sub processes, such as Theory of Mind, social perception or emotional processing, have to do with some problems that patients show in their social adjustment. Aim: Assessing ability of recognizing mental states from facial expressions in schizophrenia patients compared to a control group. Subjects and methods: 17 stable schizophrenia patients who are aware of the illness and 17 healthy people, withthe same age and sociocultural level, took the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test Revised Version of Baron- Cohen. Results: Compared with the control group, subjects with schizophrenia showed much lower scores. Conclusions: It is confirmed that schizophrenia patients have impairments to understand facial expressions, especially from the eyes. That is typical of this illness, so it is necessary to do interventions at that point. Furthermore, inability to recognize emotions, as a domain of social cognition, contributes to deficit in functional outcome in schizophrenia. Finally, some treatment programs are put forward.

Keywords

• social cognition
• schizophrenia
• emotional expression
• mental states
• eyes test
• rehabilitation
• social functioning