title: Social Cognition in Schizophrenia Patients and Their First-Degree Relatives.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Social cognition is a person's ability to configure the designs of relationships between themselves and others and to use these designs to guide social behaviors in a flexible manner. The models that are the most studied and describe social cognition are the theory of mind (ToM) and emotion recognition. This study was aimed to detect ToM and emotion recognition disorders in schizophrenia patients and their first-degree relatives.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty schizophrenia patients in remission, the first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients (n=30), and 30 healthy volunteers who were paired with the patients in terms of age and duration of education were included in the study. The Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), Dokuz-Eylül Theory of Mind Scale (DEToMS), Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, Facial Emotion Identification Test (FEIT), and Facial Emotion Discrimination Test (FEDT) were performed by the patients participating in this study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  ToM and emotion recognition were found to be defective in the schizophrenia patients and their relatives. The performances of ToM and emotion recognition were ranked as the schizophrenia group, family group, and control group, from the worst to the best. The schizophrenia group showed poor performance in all sub-components except irony. In the family group, the empathy subcomponent showed similar performance with the control group, whereas the subcomponents of the second-order false belief, metaphor, and faux pas tests showed similar performance with the patient group. There were differences among the three groups in the first-order false belief subscale as well as the total DEToMS. The patient and family groups showed the poorest performances, whereas the control group showed the best performance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The detection of ToM and emotion recognition disorders in the remission period, regardless of the attack period and asymptomatic first-degree relatives, may support the view that the period of schizophrenia is an independent continuous variable.
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Rukiye
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ay
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ömer
authors.initials: Ö
authors.lastname: Böke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Sokrates Psychiatry Center, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ozan
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pazvantoğlu
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ahmet Rıfat
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Şahin
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Gökhan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sarisoy
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ali Cezmi
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Arik
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey.
authors.forename: Hatice
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Güz
keywords: Schizophrenia; emotion recognition; theory of mind