Association of treatment satisfaction and psychopathological sub-syndromes among involuntary patients with psychotic disorders.
OBJECTIVE
Previous research has shown a link between treatment satisfaction and global psychopathology in different groups of psychiatric patients. However, neither the relationship between treatment satisfaction and the sub-syndromes of global psychopathology nor their temporal ordering have been explored.


METHODS
Participants admitted involuntarily to psychiatric wards in the UK and diagnosed with psychotic disorders (N = 232) were included. Treatment satisfaction and psychopathological sub-syndromes (i.e., manic excitement, anxiety-depression, negative symptoms, positive symptoms) were measured within 1 week and at 1 month after admission.


RESULTS
Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that higher treatment satisfaction is associated with lower scores on the manic excitement, anxiety-depression and positive symptom sub-syndromes, while no significant association was found for negative symptoms. However, cross-lagged panel analyses showed that treatment satisfaction predicted change only in positive symptoms while none of the paths from the relevant sub-syndromes to treatment satisfaction was significant.


CONCLUSIONS
Treatment satisfaction can be regarded as an antecedent of changes in positive symptoms only. These results underline the importance of examining psychopathological sub-syndromes separately as they may relate differentially to other important correlates of psychoses.
Richardson
Michelle
M
Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK. m.richardson@qmul.ac.uk
Katsakou
Christina
C
Priebe
Stefan
S
D000328:Adult; D010054:Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D005260:Female; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011599:Psychopathology / Q000145:classification; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D013577:Syndrome; D006113:United Kingdom