Neurocognitive and psychopathology correlates of subjective quality of life in first episode remitted psychosis

Abstract

Subjective quality of life (QOL) has been measured as one of the important clinical outcomes of schizophrenia. Many studies on examining the relationship between subjective QOL and symptomatology as well as neurocognitive functions were reported. Consistent data have suggested that the severity of depressive symptoms contributed to poor subjective QOL of schizophrenia. However, reports on the relationship of subjective QOL with negative symptoms, neurocognitive functions, and duration of untreated psychosis were largely inconsistent.

The current study on the examination of subjective QOL in schizophrenia, is to emphasize the importance of inner experiences of schizophrenia but do not treat them as Freedman (1974) called “average schizophrenic”, in order to find out a more effective intervention for improving subjective QOL of schizophrenia. The purpose of the present cross-sectional study was to replicate these previous studies on investigating factors related to subjective QOL of schizophrenia including, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, neurocognitive functions, as well as duration of untreated psychosis. Besides, as most previous studies focused on chronic schizophrenia, this study involved first episode remitted psychosis patients, and to test whether it was the same phenomenon between chronic schizophrenia and first episode remitted psychosis on subjective QOL. The study result can contribute to propose suitable treatment for improving QOL of persons with schizophrenia.

In this study, 140 subjects with first episode remitted schizophrenia were examined. Significant associations between subjective QOL and psychopathology, neurocognitive functions were found; modest correlation of duration of untreated psychosis was also reported. Also, subjective QOL was associated with self-perception on the illness outlook in the first episode population.