title: Insight in schizophrenia-course and predictors during the acute treatment phase of patients suffering from a schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To analyse insight of illness during the course of inpatient treatment, and to identify influencing factors and predictors of insight.
  
  
  METHODS
  Insight into illness was examined in 399 patients using the item G12 of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale ("lack of insight and judgement"). Ratings of the PANSS, HAMD, UKU, GAF, SOFAS, SWN-K and Kemp's compliance scale were performed and examined regarding their potential association with insight. The item G12 was kept as an ordinal variable to compare insight between subgroups of patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Almost 70% of patients had deficits in their insight into illness at admission. A significant improvement of impairments of insight during the treatment (p<0.0001) was observed. At admission more severe positive and negative symptoms, worse functioning and worse adherence were significantly associated with poorer insight. Less depressive symptoms (p=0.0004), less suicidality (p=0.0218), suffering from multiple illness-episodes (p<0.0001) and worse adherence (p=0.0012) at admission were identified to be significant predictors of poor insight at discharge.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The revealed predictors might function as treatment targets in order to improve insight and with it outcome of schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Nussbaumstraße 7, 80336 Munich, Germany. Rebecca.Schennach@med.uni-muenchen.de
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schennach
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Seemüller
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jäger
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schmauss
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Laux
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Naber
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gaebel
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klosterkötter
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Heuser
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Maier
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Lemke
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rüther
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Klingberg
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gastpar
authors.forename: H-J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Möller
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riedel
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology