Cognitive functioning and expressed emotion among patients with first-episode severe psychiatric disorders.
Expressed emotion (EE) in families is able to predict the clinical outcome of patients with schizophrenia and mood disorders. However, the origins of EE and its interactions with the patient's clinical characteristics are not clear. In this respect, cognitive functioning of schizophrenic and mood-disorder patients has yielded contradictory results. In this cross-sectional study, we examined a sample of 42 consecutive first-episode patients with schizophrenia-related psychoses and severe mood disorders. Forty-two relatives were interviewed with the Five-Minute Speech Sample method. The relationships between EE and 3 clusters of patient-related variables (sociodemography, performance in cognitive tests, and psychopathology) were analyzed with stepwise regression analysis. With the exception of premorbid adjustment in childhood, only the cognitive variables were significantly associated with EE after controlling for the effect of the other variables. High EE was significantly associated with good performance in cognitive tests. Our results favor the attribution hypothesis of EE instead of the hypothesis that patient psychopathology would explain EE. Good cognitive functioning may lead to higher EE scores because of the higher expectations by the relatives.
City of Turku Municipal Health Care Department, Psychiatry, Kunnallissairaalantie 20, rak. 4, FIN-20700, Turku, Finland. jyrki.heikkila@turku.fi
Jyrki
J
Heikkilä
Tuula
T
Ilonen
Hasse
H
Karlsson
Tero
T
Taiminen
Hannu
H
Lauerma
Kirsi-Marja
KM
Leinonen
Elina
E
Wallenius
Markus
M
Heinimaa
Salla
S
Koponen
Päivi
P
Jalo
Anne
A
Kaljonen
Raimo K R
RK
Salokangas
D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology